16 week puppy waking up early

[Cookingwithkids]

Hi all. We have a 16 week old show cocker spaniel puppy. She gets a lots of exercise and mental stimulation during the day. At nighttime, she goes in her crate at 11pm and was sleeping through until about 5/5.30am when she wakes up for wee and poo in the garden, after the toilet trip she would go back in crate again and will be up just before 6am.
However the last two weeks she has started to wake up around 4am needing a wee and poo. She does go back to bed in her crate so it’s not an attention issue I don’t think. Today she was up at 3am. Nothing has changed at home and her routine is the same. Any ideas please on what I can do to help her go longer in the night? or is it just one of those things and will get better as she gets older? Thank you

Where does she sleep?

If not in your room then it is probably company she needs so either sleep with her or move her into your room. They tend to wake and then need the loo and not the other way around. If not then it's a case of looking at the times you feed.

Thank you. She sleeps downstairs in the kitchen. She goes straight back to sleep after I take her to the garden and she has done a wee and poo. So I’m not sure if she’s looking for company.
Her last meal is at 5pm (moved at the recommendation of dog trainer) and she has water in the crate all night.

I'd say she is waking because she needs company. Our pup sleeps in a crate in our room and has been going 8 - 9 hours straight most nights since about 12 weeks. She does wake but sees and hears us and goes back to sleep. I am a light sleeper so know when she is awake. In the first few weeks she would wake and whine a bit so we'd give her some reassurance and she'd settle down. She is 5 months now and doesn't need it.

Another thing is hunger. 5 pm is too early for a last meal and nothing else - if you aren't already then give a snack or something like a filled puppy kong a couple of hours before bed. That's what we do so she's not waking up hungry.

I'd bet it's company she needs though.

If she sleeps with you you can reassure her quickly and then assess whether she needs the loo or not. 9 times out of 10 our young pup did not. Just a bit of reassurance. If she is a long way away then by the time you're down and she is fully awake and then she will go to the loo. If she doesn't need it then just a hand in the crate will be enough to settle her down.

Worth a try. Very easy thing to do. If that doesn't work after a week or two look at meal times.

She needs the toilet. She will be clean all night when she’s bigger.

Thank you NewPeep. Unfortunately she can’t sleep upstairs with us as our cat sleeps upstairs. Puppy gets very excited when she sees the cat and cat gets nervous!

Thank you Wolfie. I hope so 🤞

We have the cat problem too although ours doesn’t care as he’s used to dogs. He doesn’t sleep with us at night though.

Try sleeping down with her for a week or two to see if it helps would be my suggestion in that case.

She also needs feeding later , she’s still a baby .

We have cats and dogs. I just slept down with the dogs until they could get through the night!!

Thanks all

It gets better, I think it's a stage they go through and while you work out her digestion as well...so when to feed her. We feed ours a bit later as she was waking up hungry. But I think she'll grow out of it.

5pm is a really early dinner for a 16 week old pup. Why were you advised to move to that time?

Also just because she goes back to sleep doesn't mean she doesn't need reassurance/company. At that age our pup just wanted a reminder that we were still about, once she knew we hadn't disappeared she would go back to sleep. Irritating, but ultimately she grew out of it.

Puppy used to wake up for a midnight poo everyday. The dog trainer (runs the puppy class) advised that I move the meal earlier so that she can go for a poo before bedtime. So now she does a poo at 10.30/11pm before she goes to bed. But still wakes up for a poo in the early mornings too.

If she's eating so early and emptying her bowel before bed, then her tummy is empty overnight - so she's probably waking up hungry! I always feed dogs under 6m little and often - a midnight poo is a given with such a young pup surely?!

It takes 20 plus hours for food to go from mouth to bottom pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20673088 in dogs, puppies can be a bit quicker.

Have you got her on three or four meals?
5pm seems really early for last food.

Thanks Maoam. At the puppy class, all the other puppies (similar age to my puppy) are sleeping through the night, hence I think the dog trainer advised to move meal time. This is my first puppy and all my friends puppies slept through the night early too so I wasn’t sure if I was doing something incorrectly. In the daytime we don’t have any issues as such, she loves walks, happy to be left alone sometimes, sometimes she barks for a bit but settles. Occasionally nippy but that’s just because she’s little.

She was on four meals a day but moved to 3 couple of weeks ago

Our pup didn't reliably sleep through the night until 5 months. All within the realms of normal.

Be aware that some people's version of sleeping through the night includes toileting in the house.

Our pup took longer than some to sleep through but I never had to clean up a single accident (pee or poo).

Swings and roundabouts.

5pm is way too early for a last meal for such a young puppy. At the moment you're expecting her to go 14+ hours without food so it's no wonder she's waking up hungry.

I would do last meal at around 7-8pm with a biscuit or something before you go to bed.

But it's completely normal for a 16 week old to wake up in the night - ours didn't reliably sleep through until six months and even then he was up occasionally until about a year.

Oh, and mine is five next week and he still gets a snack before he goes to bed at night!

Waking up to toilet is not sleeping through the night - I am not sure who would think that 😂

We were surprised how quickly she went through (in our room, no accidents) but I know all dogs are different. We adopted our last dog at 6 months old and she wasn't toilet trained and did not go through the night for some time (we assume stress as she was very anxious). She slept with us for the first few months. I don't remember the 3 am garden trips fondly!

Waking up to toilet is not sleeping through the night - I am not sure who would think that

I've seen it stated on here and in real life, if the dog isn't waking the humans in the night it's 'sleeping through' even if it's toileting!!

Thank you Shark and Coffee. It’s good to hear it’s normal. I’ve been overthinking this as all the other puppies I know seem to go through the night.

I was told by the trainer to use a puppy pad in the crate or in a pen so we can sleep
through the night but I’d rather take the puppy outside for toileting.