Kittens are built for dawn and dusk, not for your schedule
Cats are naturally most active at the edges of the day, and a kitten has that pattern plus a young animal's enormous energy and short sleep cycles. If her last real activity is an early-evening game and her last meal comes hours before your bed, she will predictably refuel and recharge by the small hours and go looking for the most interesting thing in the house, which is you, asleep and therefore a challenge. The fix is not tiring her out once, but re-timing her day so her peaks of play, eating and deep sleep land where you need them. That re-timing takes days to shift, so start it when you can survive a short transition rather than expecting silence on the first night.
The evening sequence that buys a quiet night
In the last hour before your bedtime, run her most vigorous play session of the day, a proper hunt-style game with a wand toy that ends in catches, not a desultory dangle while you watch television. Follow the game immediately with her final meal, because the natural feline sequence after hunting is eating, grooming and sleeping, and a kitten fed after hard play usually washes and crashes. Then dim the house, keep voices low, and let her settle where she will spend the night. Done consistently, this sequence moves her deepest sleep into your sleeping hours, and owners often find the three-in-the-morning games fade first to later, then to dawn, then disappear into an acceptable morning greeting.
Make the night itself unrewarding
Whatever she does at night, the payoff must be zero. Playing with her, feeding her early, or even an annoyed conversation all count as attention, and attention is the prize she is seeking. If she can be in your room, ignore the ankle attacks and cushion assaults as completely as you can, and if she cannot be ignored, give her a comfortable night base outside your room with her bed, water, a litter tray and a safe toy, and close your door without ceremony. A scratching post and a solo toy out there give the dawn energy somewhere legal to go. Respond to genuine distress, a kitten trapped, unwell or crying in a new and frightened way, but ordinary attention-seeking gets a closed, boring world until morning.
Check the daytime side of the equation
A kitten who sleeps all day will be awake all night, so look at her daytime pattern honestly. Long absences with nothing to do, no play until evening, and a household that wakes her for cuddles whenever she naps all build the nocturnal kitten owners complain about. Add a morning play session, leave puzzle-style entertainment for the day, and let daytime naps happen but not dominate every hour. Also rule out the non-play reasons for night crying: hunger from meals spaced too far apart for a small kitten, a tray she cannot reach at night, cold, or loneliness in a kitten newly separated from littermates, each of which has its own fix and none of which is solved by ignoring her.
When night waking needs a different explanation
A kitten who was sleeping through and suddenly starts crying at night, especially if she also eats less, uses the tray oddly, or seems unsettled in the day, should be checked by a veterinarian rather than retrained, because pain and illness often announce themselves at night first. Kittens who cry persistently despite a solid routine and a clean bill of health may simply need company at night, and a bed beside yours or a companion animal's presence can be the honest answer. Meanwhile, KinsLe Care Teams keeps the evening play and last-meal duty assigned to a named person each night, so the routine that protects your sleep does not collapse the first time you are the tired one.