Hiding is information, not misbehaviour
A cat who hides all day is not being stubborn or ungrateful. She is telling you that, from her vantage point, the open room currently feels riskier than the underside of the bed. Hiding is how cats regulate fear when they cannot control a space, and for a new arrival, a cat after a house move, or one living with noise, children or other animals she finds overwhelming, it can be an entirely sensible strategy. The goal is never to remove the hiding place. It is to lower the fear that makes the hiding place necessary all day, while quietly checking that pain or illness is not the real author of the behaviour.
First, rule out the medical hiding
Before treating this as a confidence project, confirm the basics: is she coming out at night to eat, drink and use a litter tray, and are those habits normal when she does? A cat who has stopped eating, is hiding in a new and unusual spot, or has changed her litter or grooming habits should see a veterinarian promptly, because cats famously retreat when they hurt, and a shy temperament can provide camouflage for a medical problem for days. If she is eating and toileting normally and the hiding matches a known trigger such as arrival, visitors or a new pet, you can work on confidence with a clear conscience.
Make the den official and safe
Give her a hiding place that is hers by design rather than by emergency: a covered bed or box with soft bedding, placed in a quiet corner she already favours, with food, water and a tray within a short, safe dash. Then make a household rule that she is never pulled out of it, chased from it or reached into, by anyone, including well-meaning children who want to help. A den that is guaranteed safe becomes a base she can choose to leave, whereas a hiding spot she gets extracted from teaches her only to hide somewhere harder to find.
Build a gentle pattern around the den
Visit at the same quiet times each day, sit or lie at floor level a little distance away, and let her observe you being uninteresting: reading, talking softly, occasionally placing a high-value treat where she can reach it after you move back. Wand play offered at the den's mouth, with the lure emerging and retreating rather than demanding she come out, lets her hunt from cover and discover that the doorway is where good things happen. Over days, most cats begin appearing at the entrance, then a body length out, then crossing the room at quiet hours; that gradient is progress, and it collapses if anyone celebrates it by grabbing her.
Shrink her stressors, widen her options
Audit the house from her height: barking at windows, a tray beside a rattling appliance, no escape route past a resident dog, nowhere high to sit. Add a second tray, a perch she can reach without crossing open floor, and covered routes between key resources, so moving around stops requiring bravery. Keep visitors briefed to ignore her completely, which paradoxically is the fastest way to earn a shy cat's investigation. If weeks pass with no widening at all despite a calm, consistent house, ask your veterinarian for advice, since deep, fixed anxiety sometimes needs professional support alongside the environmental work.
One gentle plan, shared by the whole house
With KinsLe Family Sharing, her den location, feeding times and the small wins each person notices sit on her shared profile, so the whole household handles this shy cat from the same page.