I was just wondering if anyone has any idea when a puppy should really be sleeping through the night. Hubby and I are just so stressed and to be honest feeling a bit depressed about the whole non sleeping issue. We thought we had got somewhere last week, with puppy sleeping three nights straight with no waking, or if he did wake, he did not cry out or seem to need us. But the weekend just gone it completely went pear shaped. Saturday/Sunday early hours he woke at 3.30 am, we ignored him as much as we could, but ended up with hubby on the sofa so puppy would go back to sleep. The same Sunday/Monday early hours, but even earlier at 2.30 am. Again we ignored him for as long as we could, but hubby ended up on the sofa again from 3.30 am. We are at a loss as to why for three nights he seemed to crack the sleeping lark but the weekend was a disaster. Initially, when he woke, he needed to go for a toilet break, but lately when he wakes, we take him out but he just starts messing around, and playing and clearly does not need a toilet break. We knew getting a puppy was going to be like going backwards and having our children as babies again, but its getting us down a bit lately. We share the care of our puppy as luckily my hubby is semi retired and I work part time so he is never alone in the day, only minimally. Maybe this is problem, because he has always had one of us around, he does not like it when he is alone but we dont know how to cure this. He is crated at night, but wonder if he would sleep better out of the crate, but then we have the issue of him chewing the furniture etc to pieces while we sleep. Its a catch 22 situation we feel. We are unable to have him upstairs with us, crated or otherwise, as our cat, since bringing puppy home, as decided to live upstairs as she is not willing to be his friend and tolerate him any way, so we have to keep them apart. Apologies for the length of message, any advice/help gratefully received from very tired, bordering on depressed, puppy parents.
It really varies from puppy to puppy. I won't tell you what age my latest was when started sleeping through the night - that will really depress you My pup only woke us when she needed to go out, though. If yours is waking to play, I would advise using a pen outside for toileting so there is no opportunity to play. Don't talk to him. He just goes in, does his business, then goes straight back to bed. You could also use a lead, but some pups start playing with the lead. I had good success with the pen for focussing the mind.
One of my pups, Gypsy, was like this. I got her a puppy pen instead of a crate and she slept fine after that. We had the occasional puddle at the end of the pen, but mopping that up in the morning was far preferable to being woken in the night.
My first puppy slept through the night from day 1. The second one, Merlin, wouldnt sleep in his crate, and after six weeks of sleepless nights we caved in and let him out of the crate. He settled right down next to Poppy (our older dog), and slept through to 7 am...
Thank you, we have been supervising toilet trips to the garden with the lead, but not tried sectioning off an area of the garden, thats worth a try. We never interact with him when he wakes up so that he knows its not waking up time or play time, but he still tries it on.
Hi there - we are in a similar situation now and just wondered 18 months or so later how things have gone?
Do make sure puppies are sleeping by your bed until they are going right through the night - and you'll have no problems. Many times the noise is separation distress during the night, but you can't tell if a puppy needs the toilet or is bored or if it's separation distress - unless you remove the latter as a variable by having the pup by your bed.
As a single male with a king sized bed, my pup has slept on bed with me since day one. (Such a little bed hog I was very lucky, she slept thru the night first night and only peed in the house once. Jo is right, have your pup sleep as close to you as possible.
We tried crate training and ended up in a similar situation, no sleep, pup waking at 2am, 3am and 4am. Didn’t matter if we were sat right next to him he still cried and howled. We ended up caving in and having him in the bed and ever since then he’s slept through the night no problems.
The problem is never with crate training per se and in itself (at least, not with any of the thousands of pups I've worked with!) but with the way it is implemented and whether the owner follows a structured crate training protocol or not...
