My cats are grazers.  Dry food is down all the time.  Wet food is served
around 6PM-7PM.   Possibly because they can eat in the night if they want
to, mine are in no hurry for me to get up.  Since they know they won't get
anything new in the morning, one or both of them sometimes stays on the bed
even when I get up.

Joy

(4) cats get fed half a (large) can when I get up then the other half
when I come home; dry is available all the time as is water, changed
once a day.

Trick is to find a dry food that they don't hate but don't like too much
to overeat.

pat

Whenever I notice his dish is empty; however, earlier today I bought him
an automatic feeder for both water and food. So, I guess when I see them
getting low I will refill 'em.

7AM and 7PM

Hugs,

CatNipped

I feed my two cats at 6.45 a.m. during the week when I have to get up for
work and then again around 5 p.m, both times with wet food.  At the weekend
when I like a lie-in, I feed them when I get up.
I leave dry food out for overnight snackies in the kitchen if they are
suddenly overcome by hunger while I'm asleep.
I don't let them in my bedroom overnight as they have perfectly nice places
to sleep downstairs.  Comfy chairs and sofa, and nice cat beds too.  I am a
poor sleeper at the best of times, and a cat climbing over all over me in
the night etc would make me too tired to go to work.
They are both allowed to *sneak* upstairs for a nap on the bed in the
daytime.  They think they are very norty when they do this and I pretend not
to notice.
My suggestion would be to keep your kitty downstairs at night.  She will
moan about it for 1-2 weeks if she's used to sleeping with you but stay firm
and get some sleep ;-)  4 a.m. is too early to be woken.

Tweed

"Kitty Breakfast is served around 7:30 A.M. I wake up to expectant
little faces and the minute I say the magic words, there's a general
stampede toward the kitchen.  Then they come back as I usually make a
pitstop before commencing  feeding duties. If it's a weekend, I return
to bed after having fed the bunch. If it's a weekday, I then get
started with the rest of the business of the day at that time.

Kitty Supper is served when I return home from work, usually around 6:
30 p.m. On the nights when I work until 9:00, it's served at 9:30 and I
get an indignant chorus when I walk in the door. =o)  On weekend days,
I try to hold out until 4:30 p.m.  But the Pygmy Lions start circling
around 3:00 in the effort to convince me that they're starving.  If I
'm away for a few days, I set up a dry food dispenser.  But the cats
love it so much, they just gorge, so I don't have it down all the time.
They get plenty of food at each meal--Nina seems to want to turn into
a small sofa in her own right--but to watch them, you'd have thought I
expected them to  catch and eat only birds and small rodents, and never
gave them so much as a bite.

Melissa

Mine pester me too, early (way too early) in the morning, but it's not
for food. They want pets. I leave dry food down for them all day long.
One nice thing about cats is they won't overeat the way a dog would.

Fortunately, mine is seldom that interested in food
(although if it's something she likes, her bowl is usually
nearly empty by time for the next meal).  I feed her in the
morning before I go to work (a bit later, on weekends) and
at night before I go to bed (somewhere between ten P.M. and
midnight).  I have had cats who "begged" when meal time
neared, but she's not one of them - nor was Patches (her
former companion).  Once he adopted me, after three years as
a stray, he learned that food is always available here, and
stopped gorging, too.  (That's probably why I don't get
hysterical begging - there's always a bowl of dry food
available for between-meal snacking.)

Smokey *demands* breakfast anywhere between 4:30 and 6:30.  We close him out
of the bedroom if he gets too antsy before 6:15.

Lunch must be served no later than noon.

Supper must be served no later than 6:00

The evening snack happens around 11:30.

Of course, any of the above may be "backed up" at the whim of the cat.

Mistletoe, OTOH, just goes and munches whatever, whenever.

Sam, closely supervised by Mistletoe

I always have dry food & water down for my little terrors, so they do
not disturb me even though they always try it on in the kitchen to see
if they can get anything else.  At about 5pm ish i'll put down some wet
food, as they are now used to this they will always appear close to
this time or when they hear a tin opening.