Hi, I am new to this site and seeking advice. Bella is 15 weeks and we are still struggling with getting her to sleep beyond 5-5.30am. We have tried ignoring her but it made no difference and we tried the alarm clock but I am not sure it worked. We set it for 6.20 thinking that was a reasonable time and the first few nights it seemed to work, she only barked for a short while and then stopped but this last week she has reverted to barking from 5am onwards barely stopping. Over the last three weeks she has only made it to 6am twice without waking up at all. We know she can hold her bladder as some mornings she plays around outside before going. Aside from the sleeping she is such a well behaved and lovely dog to be around but I have MS and the lack of sleep has a negative impact on me. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank you.
I feel your pain. Being woken before 6am was a big struggle for me psychologically. We had constant whining rather than barking though. 15 weeks she is still a baby though. I guess you might want to consider moving her crate closer to you so she can see or hear you, at least until she is sleeping longer. Are you sticking with the rule of never letting her out if she is making a noise? Only when she is quiet? Otherwise she might think barking rewards her with release from her crate. It's very frustrating. Tiredness doesn't help at all. Clicker training could help...."click for quiet".....but some other ideas might pop up in other replies. It will get better. Hang onto that. jac
Don't worry, it is something they grow out of. When Molly was an early riser I would stagger down stairs, wait outside my study (where her crate was) and the minute she drew breath I would bounce into the study all smiles and "What a good quiet girl" then let her out. She was my second pup so I had the advantage of knowing she would grow out of it. When I say "bounced into the study all smiles", it should be read in the knowledge that it was the depths of winter and the bouncing and smiling were somewhat forced
You're not alone with this one if that helps. Jura is 15 weeks tomorrow, and 5am is her preferred time to get up. Going by past experience it is something they grow out of and 15 weeks is still very young, but things will improve, it just takes time. I appreciate it must be very difficult to cope with the sleep deprivation when you have MS, maybe try moving her crate nearer you as suggested above and see if that helps the situation at all. Also have you made sure the room is dark? Jura's crate is in our utility room at night, and we had previously never bothered to put a blind on the small window in there. Covering the window at least got her sleeping beyond 4am! Let us know how you get on Jo
Is there a noise which is waking her up early, a boiler coming on, a neighbour starting up a car? Is the sun rise waking her, if she is crated you could try covering her crate with a blanket at night to make it darker and see if that helps. The main thing is Bella will grow out of the early mornings but it is important not to give her any attention until she is quiet - a pause between barks is enough and praise for the quiet.
Thanks all and sorry for the delay in replying, yesterday we made the room as dark as we could to see if that would help and this morning she still woke early at 5.30. I did wonder if it was the cats waking her up but we started locking the cat flap at night weeks ago with no difference although it is hard to find a quiet patch we always wait and then I ignore her when I come into the kitchen for a few seconds so that she knows that I haven't come down for her benefit (advice I read elsewhere) but Molly perhaps your way is better?? The thing is it's hard to know right from wrong especially as every dog is different. We don't have room for our crate upstairs (small British bedrooms ) and I really don't want her to get in the habit of being in our bedroom at night. As soon as I let her out she goes straight to the garden for the toilet so I guess that's the real reason she wakes (particularly as the room was almost pitch black this morning) but she does hold her bladder when in the crate which is good, but I guess she is calling us to say 'hey I need the toilet!'. We always try and get her to go at 10pm when we go to bed (struggle to get beyond that due to the tiredness) but often her last number two is around 7ish. I think if we could get her to go again before bedtime that would help - any suggestions? She has her last meal at 6pm. It would be great if I let her out to the toilet at 5.30 and then she went back to sleep but she still barks - although we haven't tried doing that for a few weeks as it didn't seem to be working. Wish I could fall back to sleep but I am cursed with once awake there is no chance!! Thanks for all your ideas
I would suggest her last loo break being at 11 and slowly moving this back to 10. At 15 weeks I think our last loo break was probably somewhere between 11.30 and 11. I was also still drawing out the getting up time and was probably at 5.45 am at best. Debs might also give you some advice as she had early wake-ups with Maisie. It won't last forever. Babies don't sleep all night . Well most don't! Good luck.
My solution is somewhat different - I have a new puppy every year and can't face losing my sleep for a few weeks every summer (!) , so Twiglet (Guide Dog puppy, 11 weeks old) has a puppy pad - just at night. Her last meal is 7:30pm last wee is 10pm then bed and I wake her at 7am. She uses the puppy pad for a wee once, occasionally twice in the night. I ignored crying for the first two nights, it didn't last long, now she doesn't cry at all. I found with my other two pups that I could never tell the difference between crying for a wee and crying for attention. This way I know! Her day time toilet training is no slower than either of the other pups, we usually have one accident a day now - but sometimes none. I know we will be able to dispense with the puppy pads once her bladder matures.
I had Charlie in a pen arrangement at night when he was young - I didn't get up during the night but put newspapers down like Mags. I also used this arrangement when I had to leave him at first. I didn't get a crate until he was older. I had no trouble with his toilet training, well, maybe it took a little longer than it otherwise might have taken, but it was fine. I ignored all noise, never went down, and have ended up with a silent adult dog. These days, I need a video baby monitor with an alarm for movement if he sleeps apart from me, because he won't make enough noise to alert me if he is ill or something like that (which is the main reason I have him sleep with me now). How much of this is because of this early arrangement, and how much he would have been like that anyway, I don't know..... It feels quite harsh though (Mag's puppies have an older dog, Tatze, around so that must be a big comfort). I did it because that's what my family did with new puppies. I'm not sure about it now though.....
Hi there, I feel for you. I think most of us have been in this situation. Its just because she is so young and she will grow out of it. Her bladder is too tiny to last any longer and once she is up...well that's the start of the day. There are loads of old threads on here when we almost had an early morning support group for us weary owners slurping coffee at silly o'clock. You just have to be patient and as she grows and winter draws in she will get later, I promise. Stick with it and build strategies to cope e.g. you go to bed earlier and get up for the last wee so you can sneak and extra hours sleep or power nap in the day.. Best wishes Emma and super pup Meg (18m)
Not in the same room, Tatze sleeps in the utility room and Twiglet sleeps in the kitchen, Guide Dog pups need to learn to sleep alone from day 1
It's a shame we didn't ignore her in the first week but we avoided puppy training pads as someone told us their puppy ate them. On the plus side she toilet trained really quickly so doubt we could introduce puppy pads now without confusing her plus she would likely think it's a toy! I think I will try getting her to the toilet at 10.45ish before we turn the lights off for bed and see if it helps - perhaps we should try walking her later as well and see if that helps. To be fair my son never slept through the night properly until he was 2 but I was 13 years younger then so the tiredness never bothered me thank you for all your help, advice and own experiences it's nice to hear that most people have had the same issues and it's really good to know that she will grow out of it - light at the end of the tunnel!
They definitely grow out of it in time! At a year old, my two sleep through the night. We normally go to bed around midnight, and we chuck them out for their last ablutions then, but they'll have been sleeping since 9pm or so. The only issue we have now Shadow barking a few times at around 6am some mornings. We shout a "shush" cue and he shuts up, but we're awake by then. We wondered what it was about, so looked at the security cameras we have set up and saw that it was actually Willow, who would wake up, go fetch a toy, and torment him with it until he woke up, too! Cheeky moo!
Love the name Shadow, Bella is like a shadow as she follows us everywhere! We've never had a dog before so it's all learning for us she is worth it though as she is such a lovely laid back puppy
Our Shadow is the same. He's always by my side, or right behind me. We have two beasties - the black girl is called Willow and the pale yellow boy is called Shadow. People always get confused I grew up with family rescue dogs, but these are my first of my own, and the first puppies I've ever cared for. It's a steep learning curve, with lots of moments where you think you're going to lose your mind, but the good massively outweighs the bad. I can't imagine being without them, now.
Absolutely, I've had a couple of moments when I was thinking oh my god what have we done! We have four boys who kept pestering us for a dog! It was a puppy versus baby decision and given I could chose the sex we went with the puppy she's yellow although her dad is a fox red so she's quite dark compared to some yellows. Like I said in my previous posts, we are lucky with her she doesn't chew anything except her toys, she never barks (except in the morning) and she loves everyone, she is very sociable How do you put a profile photo up? I couldn't figure it out.
Assuming you're on a computer: Click on your username at the top right of the screen and choose "My Profile". Then, you should be able to click on the box where the profile picture will go - it will say "Edit Avatar" when your mouse goes over it and you need to click those words. Then choose to either upload one from your computer or point to it on another website.
Hi! Oh you have my sympathies!! I had a 5am alarm clock for many months!. I tried every trick in the book to get her to sleep through to a decent hour, but without success. She would just bark and bark until I gave in. I could leave her for hours and she would keep barking! I followed every bit of advice from the forum, friends, books, etc, but to no avail. One morning, when she was about 6 months old, I was woken yet again at about 5am, enough was enough. I was so tired, I went and got her and brought her upstairs to my bed where she settled down and went back to sleep for 2 hours! From then on she has slept in our room with us. Without fail she wakes at 5am every morning and jumps on our bed and snuggles down to sleep and stays asleep until I get up. My record so far for staying in bed is 9am!! It's not an ideal solution for everyone, but in the end I had to get some rest and Maisie was happy! Sometimes she wakes at 7ish and we go and get some breakfast for her and a cuppa for me and then she goes back to bed for a few more hours, this makes a weekend morning very pleasant! I hope you find a solution. Let us know how you get on.
Aw Debs I hope we find a solution before we put her in our bedroom. She doesn't go up the stairs yet, what age have others let their labs go up and down the stairs? Guessing once she has gone for a month without any toilet accidents (been a no more than 2 weeks so far) I would be happier leaving her out of the crate, then she might be happier in the kitchen as there is a sofa she could sleep on. But for now, I would worry she will empty herself in the kitchen. Will just have to see how the next few weeks go. I almost fell asleep at a show today so hoping she sleeps well tonight lol!
