Our puppy is crate trained, and will be in her crate with no problem. We have a regular routine — everyone in the house goes to bed at 10, and we take her out before we all go to sleep. She settles just fine, but then she wakes up around 3:30 or 4 to go pee. She will settle again until around 5:15. She knows my husband gets up for work at 5:30, so she barks in anticipation of his waking up. I don't feed her until I wake up at 6:15. Is this normal for a 7 month old puppy to still be waking / peeing in the middle of the night? Or have we just reinforced this behavior? We've been withholding water after 8, at the suggestion of a friend. It doesn't seem to make much of a difference. Any advice would be most welcome! I'd love to get a full night's sleep!!!
My lab pup is almost 7 months old and does the exact same thing. It is not just you. Try as I might, she gets up once a night. It only take a few minutes but it is EVERY NIGHT. I am told she will outgrow it but good luck! We both need it.
I would say that by this age it has become a habit. Here is lots of good advice - https://www.thelabradorsite.com/dog-barking-at-night/
That actually makes me feel better, thank you! I don't feel better because you're losing sleep, of course — but, just knowing that it's not just us is comforting. And ours is the same — it only takes a few minutes for her to go potty, and she goes right back to sleep. I'm just counting down the days until her bladder matures
Hi. My Redds, who is 6 months old next week does a very similr thing- he goes to his crate at 10 but then wakes up anytime between 4 and 5am!! The problem is he won’t go back to sleep or let me or my partner go back to bed either (he is not allowed upstaris at the moment) BUT if we take him on the sofa just so we can have some rest he will sleep like a baby till 7!! I know we probably shouldn’t sleep on the sofa with him but we are shattered!! Any advice how to make him sleep longer? (He would bark literally for hours when we try to leave him in his crate for those couple of hours and when we tried that we started having some issues with neighbours!)
Our pup is only 12 weeks old, but I could have written this exact paragraph about him. He is going to bed around 10:30/11, and waking every morning around 6 (in fact, for some reason, this is normally exactly 5:55!). Ideally we would get him to settle until around 7 in the longer term, when we wake to start our morning routine in the house. We have tried to use the same process we use when he used to wake earlier in the night (and when he occasionally still does) - out to the toilet with no fuss, back to the crate, back to sleep. However, with the 6am wake up the daylight seems to throw him and he quickly gets pumped and ready for the day when he goes out to the toilet. And so he wont settle in his crate again. Like you, for the sake of getting the extra sleep before work, we have taken to getting him settled in his bed in the living room and having a snooze on the sofa ourselves. This works - clearly he is still tired - but I am afraid that we are setting up a habit that means that even when his bladder matures he wont get through until 7! Sorry that doesnt help with your issue - but I feel your pain to some extent
Oh dear i am worried that we have got him used to sleeping with us in the morning as I have noticed that’s the first place he tries after waking up. So we are keeping him in the crate for some time so he doesnt think it’s worth getting up early but when he wakes up at 4am its quite hard to keep going then for The day! Clearly it doesnt work though! So i wonder if there is any other way, aprt from taking him to our bedroom (where I know he would sleep till whenever we do!!) but that doesnt invlove ‘let him bark out’...
When we got my puppy at 8 weeks old, he would sleep in his crate like a dream. From the moment we got him. Never cried or barked (except in the morning when he needed to pee). We felt very lucky with him because our previous dog would always cry when we put him in his crate. However, when my puppy (currently 7 months) turned about 4 months old, he would wake up about 1-2 hours after we put him to bed (which was always at 11). So he would wake up usually around 12-1am. I had no idea what the issue was. We brought him out just before bed. So I would take him outside again to pee, but he would usually just want to play. Then, after about 20 minutes, he would fall asleep but not inside of his crate. So, we got rid of his crate at about 4.5 months old and haven't looked back. We got him a giant, really comfy dog mattress that is his bed. When we say "let's go night night" every night, he will go straight to his bed. He never makes any mess at night. He will just stay in (or near) his bed (which is upstairs with all the bedrooms) all night and will ONLY go downstairs once someone wakes up. I think he was just getting sick and tired of his crate
No, he's in the hallway outside of our bedrooms. It's a super wide hallway so he has lots of room. He usually rotates between sleeping on a bathroom floor if he gets too hot and sleeping in his bed (which is beside the bathroom).
I worry that if we allow him to sleep upstairs all he will want to do is to get to our bed with us. He is very clingy and I envisage him whining and barking at the door if we shut it or just jumping on the ned if we leave it open. Did you have any problems with your pup wanting to sleep with you?
It came very natural to us. We didn't force him before he was ready. However, he has never wanted to sleep with us. I think sleeping in a bed is too hot for him. He will lie on our bed when we're getting ready, but then leave when we get in bed. He likes sleepning alone. Even when I lie down beside him in his dog bed (yes, his bed is that big lol), he will often get up and move because he would rather sleep alone (I feel him! lol).
Haha that will never work with our boy, i thin that’s why he doesnt like his crate as much- he is VERY attached to us, to the point that we can’t go upstairs and leave him on his own downstairs as he barks until someone comes downto him. Soi guess for us its either sticking to the crate or giving in and let him into our bed. Anyone with similar degree of clinginess?!
