Puppy waking too early

[SpaceRaiders]

Pup is coming up to 7 months. He’s otherwise happy if not a bit nuts, high energy mini-cockerpoo. I feed him twice a day with a filled Kong at lunch, his last feed is around 5. He then has his last pee at around 10.30pm. But more often than not he’ll whine at 4/4.30am for a pee. I will usually see to him then pop him back in his crate but he seems to want to wake for the day at around 5.15am. If I give him his morning feed at this time, the little #% will then happily snooze in his crate all morning which leads me to think he’s just hungry. Meanwhile I struggle to fall asleep after that 4am wake up call. Ideally I’d like him to sleep in until at least 5.30/6am.

Should I maybe move his food to 6pm? He’s had a health check a month ago and he’s growing well, now weighs 10kg, but he’s seemingly always hungry. - maybe I’m not feeding him enough?

Puppies are like babies, they'll sleep through the night when they're ready in my opinion! Not sure there is much you can do, I'd be weary about moving the evening feed later as he's likely to want to get up for the toilet in the night. Have you got a blanket over the crate to make it dark? Perhaps you could leave him with a Kong after you've let him out for a wee at 4am, might get a few hours quiet from him?

If he's happy to go back to sleep after eating it does sounds like he might be hungry. Our 6mo cocker gets her last feed about 7pm, bed about 11pm and will sleep till 8am. I think 5pm would be too early for her, but then it sounds like you're much earlier risers than us. Sounds like moving dinner later is worth a try? You probably do risk an overnight poo but you won't know until you try. Or maybe try a snack later in the evening? A bit of training with treats or an edible chew or another Kong?

I wish I was an early riser, but I’m not at all hence it really starting to impact me. I’d say my normal waking time is around 8, dc are usually up an hour or so before me. But with school starting back, I’d like to get him in a routine of waking at 6/6.30. Perhaps that’s a little bit overly optimistic given his age. The other thing with moving his last feed later is I don’t think he’ll cope with such a long gap between feeds. By around 3.30/4ish his already getting antsy, following me around the kitchen begging for food etc.

@SpaceRaiders When's his first feed? It's probably a vicious cycle, if you're feeding him at 6am cos he's up he will be hungry for dinner earlier than if he got up at 8. I don't know, I'm not an expert but we've been really lucky with our puppy's sleeping habits. She barely slept for the first month but since then she'll sleep 10 hours a night. What about introducing a bigger lunch to keep him going longer till dinner?

There's a Fb group called Dog Training Advice and Support. I'm sure it has a section addressing this. You're meant to set an alarm 5 minutes later each day or something. I can't remember exactly cos we've never had to do it, but worth having a look.

YY it seems like a vicious cycle. If only mine slept 10 hours 😩. I held hold off his first feed today until just before 6. Usually I give in and feed him at around soon after he wakes, as I can’t have him waking everyone up and I’d rather get back into bed. But I can see now that perhaps that’s encouraging him to wake early as he now knows he’ll get fed! I’ll look into that Facebook group.

Of course he's going to wake up at 5am if you feed him

Keep his evening meal where it is and give him a small biscuit or snack before bed. Lily's Kitchen do "bedtime biscuits" that are meant to help them settle and relax. Mine had them as a puppy though he no longer needs them as an adult.

When he wakes up, make it boring. He goes out to the toilet if he makes a fuss then back to bed. No treats, no fuss, no play. He's not going to get up if there's nothing interesting going on!

Sounds like he's hungry, so perhaps 5pm is too early for him to have his dinner? Could you split the amount between 5pm and then later on, say 8pm?

@sunflowersandbuttercups I know. I know. In my defence I’m so bloody sleep deprived that I’d do anything to get him to settle at 5 so I can crawl back into bed for an extra hour or so.

I will try giving him a little snack before bed and see how we get on tonight.

We are having the same issue with almost 5 month old pup, originally he was having dinner at 730pm but then started waking at 4am for a poo which he wasn't before (possibly because he was always pooing at 1030//1pm but last poo now between 630/830. So on advice we moved dinner to 6pm.

Now he is waking about 530/6 for the toilet but won't really settle back to sleep past 615. Previously he would always sleep till 7am in the crate regardless of what time he went to the toilet so I'm not sure what we can do.

I know its not crazy early but work is so busy at the moment we can't really go up to bed before 11pm so probably are only having about 5ish hours sleep. Without the earlier poo I guess 615 wouldn't be horrendous in the big scheme of things.

DH gets up with around 615 and doesn't give him his breakfast till 7am at the earliest. Basically all he does downstairs is go back to sleep before and after his breakfast. I want to avoid bringing him into our bed until he is a bit older

He does have a snack around 730/8 as he has some peanut butter on his lickimat when we have our tea.

We give our adult dog a biscuit at bedtime as she is a small breed prone to hypoglycemia

Maybe try that?

How did you get on OP?

I definitely sympathise with being sleep deprived - unfortunately dogs form habits very quickly so as soon as you woke up early and fed him, he learnt that if he got up early, he'd get food

It might take a couple of days to break the habit but it should be plain sailing after. Mine went through a phase of waking up at 5am to go and sniff in the garden - instead of stirring, we now ignore him and within a minute he's back to sleep.

We had a much better night thankfully! He had his normal 5pm feed with a smaller feed at 8 pm. He didn’t wake until around 6am for a pee, I popped him outside where he was quite happy sniffing in the garden until his feed at 7.

I’m curious...is it necessary to drop the third feed at 6 months? I thinking, I might as well reintroduce the midday feed if he’s going to eat at 8pm.

Hi @SpaceRaiders

I think it's very much dependant on the individual dog. If he's not quite sleeping right on 2 meals perhaps he isn't ready. Maybe reintroduce and see how it goes? If, as you say, he's really quite hungry by 5pm that may also suggest he's not there yet.