do you let your small pup out in the night?

[Partyfops]

9 week old lab puppy. We are currently setting the alarm for 3am to get up and let her out for a wee.

Is this necessary, does anyone else do this? We wake at 6.30ish anyway. Bed at 11.30.

[Asmoto]

Yes, I did this ten years ago when my dog was a pup . It's not a long phase in the life of a dog but it seems like forever at the time. I don't have children so broken nights were a new and ghastly thing to me!

[NotJustAWife]

I never did with mine. She messed in the night for the first week or so, then would sleep right through (she is particularly lazy though 😂).

[ToothTrauma]

We did it and it was SO worth it. We set the alarm a few mins later each night and soon he was sleeping through.

[CornflakeHomunculus]

Yes, puppies do generally need to go out at least once a night for a while at least.

When I have a pup I keep them in with me at night. When they get restless it wakes me up and I can just nip them outside then straight back to bed. They gradually just stop waking up during the night as they no longer need to go out.

[SparklingRaspberry]

I also did it except I would get up twice during the night, then after a week got it down to once then after 2 weeks stopped getting up completely. However I would wake up earlier than I usually would.

I never used puppy pads

It wasn't long before she was going through the whole night. So glad I did this. It doesn't last long. Better to have a week or two of getting up during the night than dragging it out and having to clear up wee every morning

[SkeletonSkins]

Yes we did this and definitely worth it. Wasn't long until he went through.

And actually, when he went through a waking up at 6am phase which wasn't great at the weekend, I found that getting up around 5/5.30 and taking him for a wee helped him to sleep on until about 8

[BiteyShark]

Yes I followed something I had seen online where it said dogs typically could hold it at night for 1 hour for every month of age plus 1 (e.g. 5 hours at 4 months of age). I know some dogs can hold it much longer but when I forgot to let him out once he had peeded and I felt awful so I stuck to it and set an alarm. Even now at 6 months old I wake him before I go to bed for a pee so he doesn't have to hold it more than 7 hours.

[Partyfops]

Thank you, i'm going to have to get better at the night waking! Poor DH goes to sleep really easily after getting up in the night so has been doing it. However, his work is really busy and hes been coming to bed after midnight, getting up at 3 and then generally we are up between 6 & 7.

I have been getting up to see her in the morning, but we have a 6 year old who also gets up then and she doesn't seem to have the ability to be quiet.

[lazydog]

Yes, at that age we did with our lab pup. It was a short inconvenience. By 11 weeks old she was completely reliably house trained, day and night (no letting her out in the middle of the night at that stage) and with her giving us clear signals whenever she needed to go, but to start with we were mainly concerned with not putting her in any situation where she'd have an accident because she had no alternative.

[Bluebell9]

I didn't with my pup. He was in a big crate with room for a bed and puppy pads. He used the pads a couple of times but then he started going straight through the night. He's 18 weeks now and I have to force him outside for a pee in the morning, he'd rather go back to sleep!
He gets up about 7am during the week, he can hear us getting showered/dressed upstairs so is awake when I come down but at the weekend, I get up at 7.30 to let him out he's not impressed that I have woken him up. He does like to go straight back to sleep on the sofa once hes out his crate. I think I have a lazy puppy!

[Medeci]

yes, I did this when my lab was a pup, each night I extended the time, ie 3.30am, then 4am etc. After a week or so we all got a good night's sleep and he'd just go out for a wee first thing like a grown up dog.