Second post on here since we got our first Labrador puppy, his name is Bruce he is 10 weeks old today and we have had him 2 weeks. We're still struggling to get him to sleep through the night, he is around people all day long and at night he seems to sleeps in intervals from about 10:00pm, he'll wake up at 12, then around 3am, and then again at 5:30am, some nights he has slept from 12 through to 4:30 so I think he is capable of lasting longer. We have his last feed at 5:30pm and we leave him in the living room alone downstairs with the tv on low volume and low brightness, his crate is covered so it is dark and he has a few blankets, however with the current weather I think he may be getting too warm? Could be why he doesnt sleep as long I dont know. But as soon as he wakes up he is crying and howling and it wakes me up from upstairs to which I go down, let him out into the garden and he relieves himself, I usually then need to spend 10-30 minutes getting him back to sleep. What can I do to help him last the night? or can anyone with similar experience give some info as to how long this will last? Also he cant be left alone, unless he is drifting off to sleep, he whelps and cries if he is put in his crate or left in a room alone, sometimes he even cries when someone leaves a room and theres still somebody else in there with him after playing with him or giving him attention. I cant quite make out yet as to whether he is crying because he isnt settled fully, he has anxiety about being alone, he cries for attention or is it just purely his age and he hasnt started to develop some independence yet. Any advice on either matter?
I probably wouldn't cover the crate at all, he could indeed be feeling a little warm, which won't help if he has not quite settled. When you settle him at 10 pm, are you in the same room as him? At 10 weeks old it is still early days. With our young pups, they had a kong around 7.30pm and a small bedtime biscuit just before bedtime at 11 pm. My OH would pop them to bed around this time after a late night wee then I would be up at 4.30am for the early shift. Gradually pushing back the time until around 4 - 5 months they could sleep until 6 am or so. It does vary a bit from pup to pup, so you just need to find a balance that works for you
He seems to fall asleep himself on the living room floor around 10pm, to which I will then point to his crate and because he's so tired he will go straight in and go to sleep, but before he goes in I'll take him outside to go to the toilet before I let him go in the crate. I only use the towels to make it darker for him as we leave the tv on so he isnt in complete silence. Coincidentally last night he went to sleep at 11:30 and only woke up at 4:30, then he woke again at 5:45 but that was because my brother got up for work and accidentally woke him. Today I needed to go the shop so I placed him in the crate with a Kong and left the house for about 10 minutes, I left with him crying and returned to him barking and putting his paws on the cage. I didnt make a fuss of him when I opened the door and I'll continue to do this 2/3 times a day to hopefully break him in a little bit more. Hopefully he's learning to sleep a little bit longer and can start to last 6-7 hours in the next month or so!
Some puppies are much harder to crate train than others. I think the covering is probably making him too warm. We typically cover the first week, then fold it back a bit each day until we can remove it entirely. The TV shouldn't bother him; puppies sleep when they sleep and usually being woken just means a shift in position and then back to sleep. If you watched him napping outside the crate during the day, I'm sure you would see this shifting of position before falling back to sleep over and over again. It sounds as if you are doing everything correctly and your boy is just taking a bit longer to settle into a routine of sleeping through the night. Here, we set a routine (which is very similar to yours) where the puppy goes in the crate while we eat dinner around 7 p.m. (with a treat so I can eat in peace), then when we have finished dinner, it's outside potty and a bit of a romp, then straight back into the crate usually about 8:30 or so until 11 p.m. when he is again taken outside for a potty break (on demand/leashed) and then back in the crate with a treat. We don't take him out again until 4 a.m. when my husband gets up (which will continue) and then its back in until 7 a.m..; the evening routine will remain the same until he can be allowed out with our other dogs and understand that once the sun goes down, it is quiet time which is usually for us about 6 months old. At that point, we don't crate them until we go to bed. Don't assume he is crying the whole time you are gone from the house; he probably heard your vehicle return - their hearing is quite a bit better than ours. If you want to be sure, you can make as if you are leaving - turn on the car etc. and then sneak to a window where you can see if he settles down after a minute or two.
