How to Look After a Kitten: A Complete First-Year Guide
A veterinary nurse's complete guide to a kitten's first year, in five stages: choosing one, bringing them home, the first weeks, growing up and settling in.
Maintained by Natalie Brundish | Reviewed by Louise Rees | Updated 15 October 2026
The new kitten adventure, in five stages
Bringing a kitten home is mostly a matter of getting a handful of things right early and then staying out of their way. This guide follows the whole of the first year, stage by stage. Each stage links out to the full guide for anything you want in more depth.
Stage 1 · Thinking about it
Choosing the right pet and preparing the home.
Where a kitten comes from shapes them more than their breed does. Ask to see the mother, ask about the father, and ask why the litter is being sold or rehomed. A kitten raised in a busy family home has already met children, hoovers, visitors and possibly a dog. That head start is difficult to replicate later.
Always visit before you commit. Kittens advertised on Facebook or Gumtree come with no history you can check. Anyone pressing you to collect the same day is not someone to buy from. A breeder, a fosterer or a family rehoming a litter they know well are all better sources than a listing. Rescue centres are worth a look as well, as many take in litters from owners who could not keep them. Expect a home check, and ask what they know about the kitten's history.
On breed, the best cat breeds for first-time owners are almost all moggies. A domestic shorthair carries genes diluted across many breeds, so they pick up fewer of the inherited problems that come with a closed pedigree line. Flat-faced breeds struggle to breathe and cannot close their eyes properly. Scottish Folds live with painful ears, Sphynx cats are prone to urinary and stress conditions, and Maine Coons carry a high risk of heart disease.
One decision is worth making now rather than later. A single kitten is usually happier than two. A pair bought as company for each other frequently end up avoiding each other, and living in separate rooms.
Then there is the shopping. A sturdy carrier that opens from the top, litter trays, and food and water bowls are the genuine essentials. The new kitten checklist covers the rest, along with how to make the house safe before collection day.
Stage 2 · Bringing them home
The first 24 hours: arrival, naming, settling in.
Set the room up before the carrier comes through the door. Your kitten needs a litter tray in a quiet corner, and food and water bowls placed apart from each other. Add a hiding spot that is obvious from floor level, such as a covered bed or a cardboard box on its side.
Keep food and water separated. Cats instinctively avoid drinking water that sits near food, because in the wild water near a carcass is water that might be contaminated. It is an easy mistake to make and an easy one to avoid.
Give them one room on day one rather than the run of the house. Let them explore at their own pace, and handle them as little as you can manage. Keep other pets and visitors away for the first week. Leave the carrier open on the floor as a bed, and your kitten will stop associating it with the veterinary practice.
Offer food about an hour after they arrive, once they have finished checking the room for threats. A kitten who ignores food for the first few hours is behaving normally. One who has eaten nothing after 24 hours needs a call to your vet. The hour-by-hour version of all this is in bringing a kitten home.
Expect crying on the first night. It is a healthy response to a new place. Leaving them to settle, rather than going in each time, builds the confidence that makes for a steadier adult cat. Somewhere in the middle of it you will need to settle on something to call them. Kitten names is there for when inspiration runs dry.
Stage 3 · The first few weeks
Litter training, vaccinations, socialisation and microchipping.
Most of the litter work is done for you. Between 80% and 90% of kittens arrive already using a tray, because they have been using one in their previous home. Have one more tray than you have cats, so a single kitten gets two. Put them somewhere quiet, and never next to the food and water bowls. Learning to litter train a kitten is mostly a matter of setting the tray up well. The rest is avoiding what puts a cat off, starting with heavily perfumed litter.
Scratching or digging at the floor is the signal to lift your kitten into the tray. If they have an accident, put the mess in the tray rather than telling them off. Shouting at a cat or spraying them with water teaches them to be frightened of weeing near you. A kitten who was reliable and suddenly is not is usually telling you they are stressed. Stress in cats causes cystitis, so book a vet check if it comes on suddenly.
Kittens have their first vaccination at eight to nine weeks, usually before they leave the breeder, and a second at around twelve weeks. Immunity is not instant. Allow two weeks after the final dose before your kitten meets the outside world. Antibodies from their mother's milk protect them for the first six to eight weeks and then wear off. The vaccine course is designed to close that gap, and it covers cat flu among other diseases that kill kittens.
Book a general health check in your kitten's first week at home, separately from the vaccination appointment. Fleas are the most common skin problem vets see in kittens, picked up from the mother or littermates, and ear mites run a close second. Mild grogginess for a day or two after a vaccination is expected and means the immune system is responding. The law on microchipping covers cats in England by twenty weeks old, indoor cats included. Your kitten should already be chipped when you collect them.
A kitten takes in most of what they learn about the world between five and seven weeks old, which happens before they reach you. What you can do is keep that going. Let them meet people, hear normal household noise, and get used to whatever else lives in your house. Watch for a kitten who hides constantly, hisses or backs into corners. A frightened cat is much harder to win round than a frightened dog. That often means asking children to leave the kitten alone when it has had enough. It can also mean giving the cat a room the dog cannot follow them into.
There is a bitey, scratchy phase in these weeks, and it is hunting practice rather than aggression. Kittens tend to aim it at the person who feeds them. Redirect it onto string toys and kicker toys instead of your hands, and it fades on its own.
Stage 4 · Growing up
Outside readiness, transition feeding and first independence.
Kittens need small, frequent meals because they have high energy needs and small stomachs. At eight weeks, feed four times a day. At three months, drop to three. From six months, two meals a day is enough. Which brand you pick is a separate question, and the best kitten food is rarely the most expensive tin on the shelf.
Use the portion guidance on the packet as a starting point, not an instruction. It is written for an average kitten, and yours may be more active, smaller or a slower grower than average. Adjust in steps of no more than 10% and give each change a week or two before you judge it. Measure out the day's food rather than topping the bowl up whenever it empties, because cats are poor judges of their own appetite. Once your kitten is neutered their metabolism slows, and cutting their daily amount by about 10% at that point keeps their weight steady.
Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they need meat in their diet and cannot live on a plant-based food the way a dog can. Skip cow's milk entirely, as most cats are lactose intolerant.
Two things decide when kittens can go outside. The first is the full vaccination course plus two weeks. The second is neutering, which puts most kittens at five to six months old. An unneutered male will roam as far as ten miles looking for females, and may not come back. An unspayed female of four or five months is far too young to be found by them.
Start in the garden with you there. A small enclosed area, or even a puppy pen, lets them smell and look around while checking you are still nearby. Do it about an hour before their evening meal, so hunger brings them back in. Cats find their way home by food. They come back to wherever they are fed. It is also why a neighbour who feeds your cat will find your cat on their doorstep every day.
Bring them in at night. Roads are at their most dangerous after dark, when a driver cannot see a cat crossing. A friendly cat who sits down in the road is at more risk than a wary one. A microchip cat flap stops the neighbourhood cats letting themselves in, and the best time to fit one is after your kitten has been neutered.
Stage 5 · Settling into life
The bridge to adulthood.
Most cats move onto adult food at around twelve months. Make the change gradually rather than overnight, and expect their appetite to level off as growth slows.
By this point the routine largely runs itself. Two meals a day, a clean tray, and an annual booster reminder. A cat who comes and goes on their own terms. This is also the stage where most owners think properly about insurance, having seen what a year of veterinary care costs. Three guides cover it between them. What vet fees actually cost sets the scale of the bills. Is pet insurance worth it weighs the decision, and what pet insurance covers explains the policy.
New kitten questions
Most kittens are confident in one room within a few days and comfortable across the house within two to three weeks. Expand their territory a room at a time rather than all at once, and let them set the pace.
One. Two kittens bought as company for each other frequently end up needing separate rooms and stress management. Get a second cat only if you actively want two.
After the full vaccination course plus two weeks, and after neutering, which usually means five to six months old. Start with supervised trips into the garden about an hour before their evening meal.
Start with the guidance on the packet, then adjust to the kitten in front of you in steps of no more than 10%. A more active kitten needs more, and a kitten who is smaller than their littermates may need smaller, more frequent meals rather than larger ones.
In England it is the law, by twenty weeks old, and that includes cats who never go out. The rest of the UK has no such rule yet. Either way it is the thing most likely to get your cat home. Check the chip is registered in your name and not the breeder's.
Get the new kitten checklist
Everything in this guide, as a list you can work through.
Getting a puppy instead?
How to Look After a Puppy: A Complete First-Year Guide
Search in the site
Advice for every stage of your pet's life, from the first day home onwards.
