Hello All! I'm a first time poster and welcome any thoughts, as I'm an exhausted puppy parent. We have an 8 month lab who used to sleep fairly well through the night. She's potty trained, has a last spirited walk around 8-9pm, a final toilet in the garden around 10/10:30 then up to bed with us. She doesn't need the loo again until 7am or so. Often she's so tired from the walk we have to wake her for the last toilet. As she suffered from separation anxiety when younger (and still does, albeit to a lesser degree), we had to opt out of the crate overnight as the whining & rattling was non-stop. She has a crate in our bedroom. Initially this was to help with potty training, which has been a success. Our current set up is she has a nice bed alongside my side of the bed and the open crate. She sleeps soundly until about 4/4:30am. And like clockwork, she'll have two feet up on the bed, nudging me to get up. There are no outside triggers to tell her the time. When I push her down, give her some gentle cuddles and tell her to lie down we have one of two outcomes: 1) she gets bored and then starts walking around & making noise, jumping up with two feet at every point on the bed, or 2) she settles for about 45mins longer and resumes the process at 5am. As my husband is a fidgety sleeper, our choice and preference is not to let her up to sleep with us*. This pattern continues from 4am until 7am every day. The broken sleep is really taking its toll on us. Cuddles and reassurance has failed to resettle her; we've tried it exclusively over the last 6-8 weeks. So we have recently decided to put her crate outside our bedroom door and when she wakes up and chooses not to re-settle, in the crate she goes (with nice padding and quiet toys). By day she'll happily choose to nap in an identical crate in the kitchen when I'm working from home, so there isn't a negative association, generally speaking. However, all this has meant that she spends 4am onwards whining in her crate rather than making noise around the room. It's purely for attention/desire to be with us rather than the toilet. But our bedtime level attention hasn't proven enough to settle her. Today/last night, after 90mins of whining, I caved and brought her back in the room, blocking it so that she could really only be in her bed and not wander. She was overjoyed and slept from 5:30-6:30. But then it was up and revved again, whining. So, back in the crate and we suffered out another 30mins of whining before alarms at 7am. She doesn't respond to Adaptil. I'm hoping it's just a stage but I want to be careful, if it is, not to create a negative situation resulting in more problems. Or if it's not a stage, we need some helpful ideas for a solution. Do we just carry on and stick it out, trusting she'll quit the whining or learn to re-settle to avoid the crate? Is that even a behavioural possibility? Any ideas welcome! Many thanks, from two very tired folks. *On two occasions when staying with family, we were unable to keep her out of the bed as the beds were lower to the ground (ours is high). On both occasions, though she'd stretch & fidget, she did sleep through the night (whilst hogging the majority of the bed and still giving us a rough night.) But it showed us she is capable of sleeping through; albeit sleeping wedged between us, stretching, fidgeting and kicking.
Welcome to you. It looks like ready access to you may be the problem. What time do you feed her? Have you tried a crate for the whole night rather than just when she wakes up? .
Honestly, I'd put in her kitchen crate and buy earplugs. As said above, she can get to you, so she does. It ay get worse when the mornings are lighter, too.
I'm inclined to agree with Mags. Get her used to being in the crate for the whole night so she can't pester you. It doesn't sound like she's distressed, in which case I may take another approach, but that she wants attention - which you're (understandably) giving her and so reinforcing her behaviour. This might be more successful starting off with the crate in the bedroom and gradually moving it out. My latest pup was far more settled in a crate overnight than being given more room.
Yes, it’s also about habits. If their routine is to go to bed in the crate and wake up in the crate they have much more chance of sleeping all night. But it will take some ‘tough love’ at first as pawing or shouting for attention has worked up to now. Personally I can’t bear pups crying so I wait by the crate until they go to sleep, but I don’t let them out. I turn my back and read a book. They may still shout, but I’m there and I know they are just frustrated not upset or distressed. Of course I do this when they are very young and, the older the dog, the harder it is to break habits. But worth it imo I used to happily sleep in the same bed as my dogs, but as I’ve got older I have become a very light sleeper, making this impossible. .
I think this is a genius technique because, as much as the pup is still shouting, because you're not waiting until you're in bed trying to sleep it will be far easier for you not to give in. You could put some earbuds in and listen to a podcast or audiobook if reading isn't your thing
Thank you - I’ve rarely had the word ‘genius’ attached But it’s true, I really can’t bear it. Most puppy walkers go and pick up their own pups, I don’t, my friend goes for me - I can’t drive to the sound of a crying puppy. Kids? I can ignore their crying no problems! If one turns on the waterworks at school I say ‘stop crying, it doesn’t work, I won’t change anything I say just because you cry’
I wish we’d started our boy in the kitchen to sleep. He moves all night and I now have terrible sleep. Too late to change now though - he’s 6 yo and I couldn’t do this to him now, he loves being with us. He did go through a stage of waking too early when he was very young. We ignored him. He threw a tantrum the first morning - literally threw his bed across the floor! He was frustrated that we were ignoring him. We were heaving with laughter under the duvet. Took three days of ignoring and he stopped, slept through. I must add that he never cried. But did he bark!!!! Deafening. We apologized to the neighbour, explained we were in training. Thankfully she said she never heard.
Hi Mags, We last feed her at 6pm. Then she has some play time afterwards and a good walk (8/9pm ish). We did originally use a crate but she tossed and turned so much that the rattling was keeping us awake. But she never whined when in there, so we thought (foolishly), since she settled we'd give her a bit more space and avoid the rattling. This did work for a good month or so; but then the unsettling began. She is very attached to us. For example, if I fall asleep on the couch, she will curl up on top of me to sleep and I wake up with her in all sorts of positions. She loves a cuddle. You make a good point about the east access to us being a potential issue. I mentioned the behaviour to the vet today during her check up and he said it's likely a stage, given her age, to ignore it as best we can, not to reinforce it and that reintroducing the crate at this point may be difficult so to bear that in mind, too.
We did have it in the bedroom -- but the rattling she'd make in it was just as disruptive. So we moved it out a few days ago and have only used it when she's really on the move. But I realise that may have unsettled her, too. Growing up, our labs were so settled when sleeping in bedrooms with us that I took for granted that pup would, too.
My Tatze also sleeps on top of me on the couch but she sleeps downstairs in her crate at night. I think you have tried so many things she really doesn’t know what the routine is supposed to be. I would choose one thing and stick with it, working to make it happen. I would also feed her later to be sure it’s not hunger making her wake early. If you decide to have the crate downstairs you may end up sitting with her while she shouts then gives in for quite a while before she gets the message that this is the new normal. I decided, when Tatze was four, that I’d had enough of her weeing on the lawn so I made her a gravel spending area and didn’t allow her free access to the garden. It took her about three weeks to get used to the ‘new normal’.
Thanks, Mags. I think you are right. We don't even know what the routine is -- always in hopes that something will stick. We just need to decide what our end goal is and then muscle through. She is smart so ought to get it after awhile. We fed her earlier to prevent it being a toilet issue overnight -- we carry her upstairs to save her joints whilst they grow and I am newly pregnant so we're trying to minimalise the ups & downs (my husband does it all now - but as the much lighter sleeper, I try to take the brunt of interruptions if I can). But I take your point - she could be hungry, so maybe even a late night Kong with food might keep her tum settled and yet not be enough to push her over the edge to need the toilet. That lawn bit is a top tip, too. We're in London and the garden is small -- Primrose has decimated the grass. So we've been thinking about designating an area and how best to accomplish it -- will keep that in mind!
Thank you, everyone. I really appreciate your thoughts and advice. You've all giving me great ideas to think about -- and hope that they could actually work! It feels so bleak at 4am but we will soldier through.
I agree with @Boogie about feeding later. When we started giving our boy his biggest meal at night (he’s fed twice a day) plus a bedtime snack, he slept longer. We started this when he was an adult to prevent early morning pukes, and a nice side effect was even later sleep-ins.
