There must be a solution to this or nobody would ever have a dog!

[inexcessive]

Can any dog owners help me? My 7 month old puppy has started waking up at around 4am (2am yesterday, went back to sleep at 4am). He whines and barks. I have to go to him as we have neighbours and i can’t just let him bark it out. When i go down he just wants to play. I am literally weeping from sleep deprivation. Currently i don’t feel much love for him and that makes me feel terrible. What the hell do i do?! Can anyone just tell me this will get better?

We gave in and let him sleep upstairs as he wanted to be with us.

We had this with our puppy when she was around a year, so the advice may be different with a younger pup.

Eventually I realised that a few nights if barking pup was far better for the neighbours (and us) than barking all night long because we had trained her to bark and we'd come.

Nowadays she rarely barks in the night but if she does I give it a few minutes then go down once, ignore her, silently open the door for her to go to the toilet, then go straight back to my bed. No words, no pets, no lights (phone torch if necessary).

Mine does this sometimes (he's 5 months). I take him out , dont speak and then back in crate. Increasing gaps between visiting necessary. Puppies are hard work so dont give yourself a hard time.

We had the same problem until I let him sleep under my bed. Now he pretty much sleeps through. He's 6 months old now.

let him sleep on the bed with you, dogs are social and get lonely. I have my 2 on the bed and always have done with all the dogs Ive had. Also he is still a baby really, well toddler, and it wont last. He will sleep through.

Our last pup (now 2 years old) was an early riser, we used to get up when we heard her, let her outside in silence and then give her a Kong with something in (like peanut butter) and put her back in her bed. She would fall asleep while chewing on her Kong and we would get a few extra hours.

She seemed to grow out of it by about age 1, she just seemed to stop doing it one day (probably because even though she got a Kong, it was relatively boring getting us up early). Now she's a lazy dog who I have to drag out of bed for a walk in the morning! Haha

I agree with those saying let him sleep upstairs.
Dogs are pack animals. He is still a baby. He is probably lonely.

As an aside, we had fire safety training at work a few years ago and talk moved to domestic safety Towards the end, and on subject of dogs they said dog should be in room you are sleeping in, with door shut. In case of fire you have him, grab dc and go. No need to go into any rooms downstairs to find dog (who will likely be scared by fire and hiding) thus delaying exiting building.

No idea if that advice is still current but dogs sleep upstairs 🙂

Puppies are only supposed to be walked for 5 minutes per month of age, twice a day. Walking him too much could be harmful to his development so it's probably not a good idea to increase it.

How much training do you do with him? He might need his brain keeping busy more than his body

Is a neighbour disturbing him? My neighbour is a taxi driver his cab is hired out to someone else at night his old cab was NOISY! it woke the baby frequently

Ours ended up in our bed too and sleeps like a teenager...she drags herself out of bed at the last possible moment before i make it.
Shes a year old now and sleeps her head off, she s a lazy dog who just wants to cuddle or play.
I stayed in the kitchen with her one night and i could understand why it was scary.
She doesnt shed so that really makes a massive difference to me and how i feel about her in our beds.
Strangely in my mums house she prefers the kitchen....

It’s extraordinary, the baby sleep threads are identical to this. Half the people saying let him cry it out the other half saying let him sleep with you!!! No helpful advice just pointing out the similarities!

Decide what time is acceptable for you, if he wakes before then, only put on a low light, out in the garden for toilet, no fuss or attention and then back in the crate and say “Night,night”. We also leave our Alexa playing white noise, as we have foxes, early rising neighbours etc who disturb the dogs. Two of mine would happily sleep till 7.30, but my rescue Pomeranian aged 14 months is the worst dog I’ve ever had for this. He is slowly improving with the “sleep training”, it is really rubbish, sympathies from me 😴

Mine never took to sleeping in her cage when she knew we were upstairs. Tbf we didn’t try that hard and she’s in bed with us now.

She’s lazy now and will grump when I wake her up at 7am and takes herself off to bed around 10pm. I would just chill and go with it personally.

One night after a week of illness I was so excited to get an early night and the dog had the goddam D&V bless her heart but she had me up every half an hour, horrific and I can tell you yes it does make a tiny bit of you think whyyyyy did I get a dog. 99.9999% of the time she’s my bez

Ours sleep right through the night no problem....... in our bedroom !!

I've had three dogs, a Cocker Spaniel, a Rough Collie and a Retriever. I can't bear yapping dogs, so when they barked to play as puppies, I'd say a sharp "NO!" and withdrew attention when they barked, and it stopped them. As adult dogs they were quiet and well behaved. They would still bark a warning if they were uncertain of an outside noise. You could try going down and saying "NO!" when he does it. Also, as others have said, he may be cold. My sister in law had made fleece coats for her dogs, which she refers to as their pyjamas!

Ours sleep in a cosy bed in the kitchen. At that age I think we used a biscuit ball. Reassure you're still there and hand over the biscuit ball and go.
They out grow the early waking phase fairly quickly. Depending on breed of puppy you have to be careful about over walking at a young age.

Why do you not allow him upstairs?

He's a dog, not a hippo, what's he going to do if he goes upstairs?

I've never understood this logic of having a dog but then not letting it have access to certain parts of its home.

I think people with that mentality shouldn't have a dog in the first place.

He could be beginning his ‘secondary’ fear phase. I’ve seen it a lot that adolescent puppies go through another waking phase having settled through the night. Is anything ‘scary’ waking him? Noises such as boiler firing, next door making a noise, cars in the street, even birdsong? Is there a security light or something coming on and waking him? Is he chilly? Are you sure he doesn’t need the toilet?

I agree with PP that he needs to be quietly and boringly (!) reassured and perhaps push his bedtime back a bit later.

Bear in mind your dog is with you and then come bedtime he gets left alone in a crate, no wonder he can’t settle. Let him upstairs, my 3 sleep from 10/7am, cosy and close by, how would you like separated and put in a crate whilst everyone else went upstairs? He’s part of the family all day then left at night 😕

I agree that the puppy will be lonely. Our dog slept in our room.

It also sounds like you only do one proper walk a day - might be better to do 2 half hours rather than a single hour, so he is more stimulated.

He’s barking because he knows you’ll come down. You should try ignoring him for a few days, leave him bark until he realises it won’t get him anywhere. It’s what worked with ours. Perhaps speak to your neighbours and say you are training him for a few days, apologise in advance and drop a bottle of wine/box of chocolates and some ear plugs around. It may work, it may not but at least you’ll know and then can move on and try something else.

@littlemisstoldyouso, Mine doesn’t go upstairs for good reasons. He is a large breed puppy and we have a lot of steep stairs. Stairs aren’t good for his hips, especially not ours. We also have a cat and like to keep space defined as a ‘safe space’ for him, where the dog cannot go and (enthusiastically) bother him. The dog is allowed on sofas and has a grand old time with us, he just isn’t allowed upstairs.

Puppies are like babies, they are all different. I had one puppy that didn't need more than 5 hours of sleep a t a time. After 5 hours he was up and about wanting to play because he was completely awake, just like some babies/toddlers.

What you do is adapt to what your puppy needs until this phase is over, just like you would do with a baby/toddler. You can let you puppy bark it out (assuming you have very understanding neighbors) but you do risk your puppy developing other unwanted behaviors, e.g. destructive behavior, associating the crate with punishment and possibly separation anxiety.

what breed is he? He might well need longer offlead particularly if he's a working breed.

What time do you feed him? We had the same problem with our dog, until we realised he was waking up hungry in the morning, so waking us up at 5am because he hoped we’d feed him. We moved his dinner back to 9pm and now he sleeps in until 8am