Dormir à poings fermés

Le chat peut dormir comme une souche. Il peut dormir comme un loir. Mais il ne peut pas dormir à poings fermés. Cette situation le dérange.
// The cat can sleep like a log. He can sleep like a dormouse. But he can’t sleep like a baby. This situation bothers him.

We are going through “your daily routine" theme. One expression came up while talking about sleep — “dormir à poings fermés” — “sleep soundly”, “sleep like a baby”, but literally something like “to sleep with clenched fists". (Although it doesn’t sound very relaxed, babies really do sleep like that).

Now, the cat, due to his configuration, can’t clench his fists. He feel rater bothered by it, since he always thought himself an expert sleeper.

I used this site to look up sleep-related French idioms. “Dormir comme une marmotte”, “to sleep as a marmot” is my favorite because we have exact same expression in Russian — «дрыхнуть как сурок».

Pictures related to cats and sleep @ Shutterstock.