Please help me get my dog to sleep later!

[Idratherbepaddleboarding]

My dog keeps getting up earlier and earlier 😭. He started getting up about 6am a few months ago and it’s got earlier and earlier until today it was 4:15! I try telling him to go back to bed but that lasts for half an hour max and I don’t manage to get back to sleep in that time. I know the best thing to do would be to put him back to bed and ignore him but I can’t as he thinks the polite way to wake me up is to scratch the wall by the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs 🙈.

All he wants is company as he eats his breakfast then curls up on the sofa with me and goes back to sleep 😡. DH won’t even entertain the idea of letting him sleep in our room, DS’s room or upstairs at all. It doesn’t affect him though!

Please give me any ideas to help him to sleep a bit longer, I’m at breaking point.

Don’t think this will be the advice you’re after but this was us until the summer.

We’d tried everything before - making the room as dark and quiet as possible; ignoring her; taking her out for a wee and putting her straight back to bed with no talking; waking earlier than her to take her out then put her back etc etc etc.
But none of it made a difference - she’d just be awake barking until we got her.

My DH was also adamant he did not want her in our room.

Then when we went away with the dog in the summer, she had to sleep in our room as there was no where safe to leave her in the rest of the holiday house.

We all slept so much longer as she wasn’t waking at 4, 5 or 6!

She’s been in our room ever since.

Like you I think she was just lonely and wanted to be with us. She’d sleep in until 10am now she’s with us!

DH not massively happy about it but even he admits we’re all getting more sleep and I couldn’t go on with only 4-5 hours sleep a night. So it is what it is.

Check for reasons for the wake up.

Is he warm enough? Are there noises outside? Is he hungry? Does he need the toilet?

If you've covered all those off then refuse to get up until you are ready. If he scratches the wall, go and out him back in his bed without any excitement or fuss. Then go back to bed.

Repeat repeat repeat. Be more persistent than him.

When you DO get up make sure it's while he is being quiet. Never get up when he's scratching or making a noise.

This is us now and guess what - now we allow her to sleep on our bed she’s gets up at 6.45 out for toilet then back to bed til about 7.30. This is SUCH an improvement for us. We think, even though she had her jumper on and tucked in downstairs, she was lonely and cold. She’s 18 months old and had started to poop and wee in the kitchen too. Would you husband entertain the idea of putting her bed in one of your bedrooms? It is so worth it. When it gets warmer we’ll try her again downstairs. She’s currently asleep on my lap as I fancied a coffee when I let her out earlier. Good luck

@pistachioicecream it kind of is the advice I’m after 😂. I’d love for him to be in our bedroom on his bed or even at the bottom of ours but DH is so stubborn and he won’t even let him upstairs. DS would also happily have him in with him. It doesn’t affect DH though as he doesn’t wake up.

@WhaleInAManger thanks, he’s definitely not hungry, he’s a greedy lab who’s always eating and I’ve tried giving him a snack before bed but it doesn’t help. I don’t think he’s cold as he certainly feels warm and he much prefers being cold to warm. He’s in his element in this cold weather and he hated summer (the opposite of me!). He doesn’t need a wee as he doesn’t see until his first walk at 8:30 and he doesn’t woof at the back door which he would if he needed a wee. He had agility last night from 8:30 til 9:15 and was crazy fast last night so I thought he might be tired and sleep longer but, nope. He also had extra treats last night for a job well done.

I’m certain it’s the company and cuddles he wants but I’m at breaking point so I think we’ll just have to accept the wall thing and fix it once we’ve (I’ve) broken the habit.

DH says we need a trainer to help but I don’t see how they could as they can hardly come to the house at 4am 😂. I also work with toddlers with SEND and find that the strategies for dog training are the same as the ones that work for young children so when we had a trainer when he was a puppy she was just teaching me to suck eggs.

From your updates it sounds like what you're are dealing with is the need to extinct a learned behaviour. I mention that phrase, because it will help you find relevant articles to help.

Extinction of a behaviour is where you stop the dog getting whatever benefit they previously got from that behaviour, in the hope they eventually give up doing it. In your case, you hope the dog stops scratching and trying to wake you up because it no longer works.

What you need to know about this is that it is likely to get worse before it gets better. When a dog tries a behaviour that previously worked to get them something they wanted, and it suddenly stops working, then they are likely to try that behaviour all the more out. They exaggerate it, may even add some new ones in, such as barking.

The key to this tactic working is to keep strong and NOT give in, even when the behaviour gets more exaggerated. If you do, you reset the benchmark and the dog now thinks scratching and barking (for eg) is the thing to do.

If you hold firm the dog will eventually stop. You'll have some very disturbed sleep for a few weeks but eventually will have peaceful mornings again.

You could put up a scratch plate to protect the wall.

Put something up to protect the wall and ignore the behaviour. Your rewarding the behaviour by letting them out at that time.

The only thing for me was letting the dogs in the bed . Downstairs all they did was pad around , scratch the door to go out , let out , only for them not to do a wee , stopped going downstairs when they scratched and then stayed awake thinking oh god if they aren't put out maybe they do need a wee and I'll have to clear a flood when I get up .
Awful and the only way was to sleep together . We sleep a full night through now and feel much better .

If you don't (or can't) follow @SirSniffsAlot advice then make your husband go down and deal with him! That may change his mind about letting the dog up.
My dogs weren't allowed upstairs for the first three or four years but they were fine and with young kids I was up pretty early anyway. But now they are in bed with me and are happy to stay there until 8 or even later! They love it and it's very nice and cosy.

Just as some extra info - for insight and trivia: the reason it gets earlier and earlier is because the dog's natural daily cycle is just a bit short of 24 hours. So, left to their own devices and without any futher cues about the time of day, they think it's the same time as yesterday, but it's really only about 23.75 hours since.

Humans are the same.

It's an adaptation that helps you adjust to seasonal changes - because you constantly have to reset your daily clock a tiny bit to suit.

However, it does mean dogs tend to 'nag' for things like dinner and breakfast a bit earlier each day

*humans are the same but in the other direction (we prefer slightly longer than 24 hours, but for similar reasons)

I second waking DH to deal with ddog. If you have a solution that will work, DH won't try it, well it's his problem now.

I also had exactly the same issue. Was getting up earlier and earlier every day and then going to sleep on the sofa with the dog for another hour.
we went on holiday and had to have her in with us as she was too unsettled to stay downstairs alone in a strange place.
She’s been in my bed ever since and now sleeps until I get up, which on weekends can be after 9 if I’m lucky.

Could you check what is waking him up, maybe some sound outside the house or inside, that he is uncomfortable, some illness

Agree with sending DH down to deal with it.

😭 he’s been much better over the holidays, probably because he’s so tired from all the excitement but today he got up at 5:30 again. He’s now curled up with me on the sofa fast asleep again. I thought maybe he was waking up when out neighbour goes to work as he goes really early but it’s a bank holiday today so I guess not. He’s definitely not uncomfortable or ill, I’m pretty sure he just wants the company! DH has got up with him a couple of times to be fair but he just won’t relent on letting him upstairs 😡.