Sleep help

[inappropriatelyemployed]

Our golden retriever pup is nearly 9 weeks. He is as good as gold but the sleep deprivation is a bit of a killer.

We have been letting him out to toilet in the night. He has been doing his business every time.

Monday night he slept through from 12-5 for the first time - he had just had his first jabs so this might have been a one-off!

Last night was like this with DH covering.

Bed about 11-30.
Gets up 1 (toilet)
Sleep
Gets up 3 (no toilet)
Back to sleep
Gets up 4.45 (no toilet)
Back to sleep
Awake at 5.30 - wee and poo

So what can you do (if anything) about this?

We clearly don’t want to encourage or reinforce waking in the night for contact and no toiletting.

It might be we just have to suck it up as he’s little but it has been suggested just to put newspaper in the crate and put him to bed and leave him until the morning.

But we took newspaper out as he chews it so we are likely to end up with him whining and eating paper.

And if you do this, what time would you get up for the day? He seems to wake about 5.30 generally.

Help much appreciated as we both work - from home mostly - and we are knackered!

Watching with interest... my 14 week old puppy still wakes up once (between 3/4am) and then around 5am ready to go! I don't start my day until 6 but it's a nightmare trying to keep him in his crate until then... (after taking him toilet I return him to the crate)... yawn....

He's still very tiny and mine at that age used to get up in the night, sometimes for toilet and sometimes for company. I used to just plonk him outside and if he didn't toilet it was straight back to bed without any fuss or talking so eventually he realised that night is for sleeping unless he needed the toilet.

I wouldn't put newspaper down as effectively you are saying it's fine to toilet in the house at night which you don't want to encourage.

Mine was and still is an early waker but as an adult he wakes in the morning for toilet and then goes back to sleep again.

It's hideous isn't it! When our pup was about that age he was up a few times in the night - often to toilet, sometimes not! He had a crate next to our bed. If he woke I took him out and if he didn't toilet quickly I put him back in his crate.

Eventually (11 weeks old'ish) he'd go 10pm - 5am and then a wee and then back to bed until after 6am. He didn't like being stuffed back in the crate at 5am by I don't do pre-6am.

A few months on and he still follows this routine and gets up 5:05 everyday and then goes back to bed until 6:30am - 7:00am.

Is he waking you up in the night or are you waking him up?

Mine woke me approx. 3 times a night for a week, then a couple times a night for another week, once a night for a final week and then started to sleep through. It's knackering but it really does go by pretty quickly. Like pp, if he woke me then I picked him up, took him outside, put him where I wanted him to wee and told him to "go wee wees". No fussing, cooing or being very exciting. Once he weed he got picked up and put straight back in the crate. Lights out.

In terms of early morning waking then most dogs will wake with the dawn naturally. I do not like getting up that early but my pup slept in the bedroom with me, so used an alarm clock to signal it was time to get up.

I set the alarm for about the time he was waking naturally and made sure that nothing exciting happened before the alarm went off. If I had to move about the bedroom there was no eye contact or speaking to the puppy in the crate. As soon as the alarm went off I made a point about getting up, letting the dog out and starting the day. Once it became clear he saw the alarm as a sign the day was about to begin (literally only took a few days), I just started creeping the time forward - setting it for 5 mins later every day - until I reached the time I wanted to get up.

I just stuck religiously to the rule that nothing happened for the puppy until the alarm went off and within a couple of weeks or so he would happily sleep quietly until about 7.30am.

Thank you all so much.

He is waking us and we are trying the very low key apporach. Wee and back in crate.

I really like the alarm idea. He is absolutely bonkers first thing too so it is a bit of a nightmare. He is so much calmer the rest of the day