Puppy night wake ups

[Cazzie1979]

Morning all, I am hoping to get some tips for night time wake ups. We have a 14 week old puppy and at the start he slept in a crate by our bed. He woke up for the toilet so I’d take him down but he then wouldn’t settle so we’d end up putting him in our bed just to get some sleep, but I don’t like doing this so I decided to reset the bedtime and train him to sleep in his crate downstairs (we have 2 crates). So for the past week he’s slept in the crate/playpen downstairs with me also sleeping in the same room to take him out or settle him down if need be. Started off with 2 wake ups and it’s got worse as the week went on - last night was 4 wake ups and each time I had to settle him otherwise he’d whine and bark. I’m running on empty and not sure whether to see this out for another week see if it gets better or go back to putting him in bedroom crate which I really don’t want to do, but I also need sleep to function in the day.

If anyone has successfully trained their puppy to sleep in the crate downstairs then any advice would be gratefully received

He's 14 weeks old...I'd keep him in your room until he can go whole night without peeing.
When he wakes just carry him downstairs then out for wee, carry back up straight into care. No other interaction or giving treats. Just make it really perfunctory.

So we found sleeping with him was putting him off and just put him in the kitchen, door closed with favourite toys food and water to be honest- very late out to the garden and then out with him in the morning and after a few days he was fine

What breed is your puppy? That will impact the advice that knowledgable dog owners will provide. What works with a Golden Retriever or a Cocker Spaniel will probably not be applicable to something like a GSD or a PMD.

I am going to preface everything I am about to say with - I am a novice dog owner who has a crate for my 13 week old Labrador Puppy. I had him since 8 weeks. I’ve not managed to go upstairs to bed yet as it’s too soon for him but I’ve been taking gradual baby steps so as not to overwhelm him. So other,
more experienced dog owners may give you better advice than me but this this what seems to be working so far!

So, for about 2 weeks I think it was, I literally slept on the floor right by his crate with my hand in it. This worked well and he would pretty much sleep the whole night. I appreciate I am very lucky in that he will go 7 hours without a toilet break! Wed wake up about 6am, outside for a wee and then we won’t both sleep together on the sofa for a few hours after that.

I have now migrated on to the sofa. I’m still in the same room, but further away and he can see me. He has gotten used to the routine - last wee at 11ish, goes straight in the crate, gets a small treat for doing so and then settles immediately.

Once we were used to that, I added in one more step in to the routine which was me leaving the room to go upstairs for as long as he could handle (we are at ten mins at the moment) which I will stretch out slowly until hopefully it’s long enough that he just goes to sleep. Still early days and I am planning on taking the babiest of baby steps!

The next step I added in to the routine (only started this one two nights ago) is when I come back down, I say good night and cover the front of the crate with a blanket (not the sides to allow air flow and luckily it has been much cooler) I am still sleeping on the sofa, but he can’t see me anymore. He complained a little the first time but I reassured him I was still in the same room and he quickly settled.

Is your pup needing a wee every time they wake up? Do they have a slightly different whine that is distinguishable between “I need a wee” and “I need some comfort”? Mine has a very distinctive “I need a wee” whine and that’s usually the one that wakes me up in the morning.

How do you settle him when he wakes up in the night?

Sorry for the spelling mistakes! Hopefully it made sense!

I feel like that will now confuse him since we’ve already been downstairs for a week. Also he has the crate in a playpen so he has more room in the downstairs crate.

Every time he wakes up he whines so much which then turns into really loud barks that I feel I have no choice but to either take him out or settle him down. I don’t feel I could leave him to it when he’s so loud at night

He is a miniature dachshund

This is why I would try and engineer it to sleep right next to him so you can comfort him at the first sign of a whine and it doesn’t escalate in a full blown bark/howl as it’s harder to calm him. Then eventually you can start moving away. But prepare to possibly be in it for the long haul. I’ve been sleeping on the sofa for 4 weeks - apart from the roughly 2 weeks at the beginning when I was sleeping on the sofa cushions literally right next to his crate. If you can’t face knowing this is potentially going to take a while then I would go back to your original sleeping arrangements personally. For me, I don’t mind it taking a while as long as I can see progress from one week to the next, and I can. It just takes baby steps.

If you’re taking him out of the crate when he’s already barking then he knows it gets him out of the crate.

Thanks for summarising your bedtime routine. When our puppy was in the crate in our room, I would put my hand in to settle him but he constantly bit me so I couldn’t do that anymore. Now I say shh and back to bed, stroke him if he doesn’t bite. He quite often just goes back in the crate from the playpen but only lasts a few mins then out again to whine and bark, this can go on for 45 mins sometimes. We have a blanket on the crate.

He doesn’t seem to have a different whine if he needs a wee so if it’s been longer then 4 hours I’ll take him out for one (e.g last night he whined at 11.30 so took him out, he then woke again at 1.40, 2.40 and 3.45, so I only took him out at the 3.45 wake up).

I only took him out the crate twice out of the 4 times he woke and this is because I don’t know why he is unsettled, it could well be because he needs the toilet (as I said it was 4 hours after the last wee).

I will go back to sleeping on the floor next to him, think I’ll have to get an airbed as our sofa cushions aren’t removable.

I found my puppy didn’t like the crate door being closed. Can you make the room your dog in safe? He slept in his crate all night but u just left the door open and closed the kitchen door. Basically the kitchen was his extended crate. The whining stopped immediately and he has slept all night ever since.

Again, I might be talking out of my arse but my understanding is that giving them what they want some of the time can be worse than giving what they want ALL of the time. It’s like playing a slot machine - sometimes he barks and he gets what he wants, sometimes he doesn’t.

You have to remember (which I’m sure you do) that you’ve just massively changed his bed time routine in one go. The crate is slightly different, in a different place in the house, in his pen and you’re not taking him in to your bed anymore when he is unsettled which is what you have taught him to expect. I totally get it, I second guess myself all the time but it’s unpredictable for your dog. He doesn’t know what you expect of him which is why you try and change one thing at a time and go in small baby steps. If I was in your position, I would either put him back in his old crate but don’t let him out at all apart from for a wee and do not bring him in to your bed at all but sleep on the floor right next to him so he is close to you. That’s just one change for him to cope with - I.e. I’m not allowed in the bed anymore. Once he is ok with that, move a little further away. If he whines a little but settles then all good. If it escalates too much, you’ve moved too far.

If it all sounds too much or isn’t workable for you, I would do what the first poster says and just accept he needs to sleep with you and that you’ll all get a better nights’ sleep for it.

The crate is in a playpen so we always have the crate door open but the playpen gate shut. It’s in the lounge at the moment as that’s where my husband works from home and the puppy likes to be in the same room as him. We could possibly move the crate into the kitchen just at night time and make that a safe space although I wouldn’t be able to sleep near him, I’d have to sleep in the lounge (it’s open plan so I’d be able to see him from the lounge

@Cazzie1979 - that'll be why then. Dachshunds are incredibly clingy and prone to extreme SA. He's also very very young. You'll need to move slowly on any solo time you give him, otherwise you run the risk of making it a lot worse. So I think it'll be a case of him coming back upstairs, or you sleeping downstairs until he's settled.

Some dogs can be left from day one, others can't (sadly).

Mini dachshunds are both incredibly hard to toilet train and incredibly prone to separation anxiety, so it’s no wonder you’re struggling.

Personally I would have his crate in your room so you’re at least sleeping comfortably and accept that you have a tiny dog who can’t hold its’ bladder for very long at all. Larger breeds are easier to train in that respect as they have the physical ability to hold it which mini breeds don’t.

My neighbour has a dachshund. He had/has awful SA. She had to carry him around in a sling for the first few months as he wanted to be held the whole time.

Sorry. No advice with the night time problem as my puppies sleep with me and you don't wish to do that.

Oh gosh. One of the 'worst ' breeds for separation anxiety AND barking.
Maybe get a behaviourist in.

Our pup is a vizsla, so quite different , but they can also be prone to severe SA. Crate training him didn’t work at all, as soon as we’d put him in he’d cry and bark and whine, even if we stayed right next to him all night. None of us, including our 6yo, were getting any sleep, so something had to give. Ultimately we decided to risk abandoning the crate altogether, put his dog bed in a comfy chair in the lounge, had a low light and music on for him, and left him to it (we also took up all our rugs for the first few weeks every time we left him incase he had any accidents in the night). By some miracle it worked and from the very first night he slept through (he was 16 weeks at the time), and has continued to do so ever since. Very occasionally he might need to be let out in the middle of the night, but we trained him to use a bell that’s hung on the door so he could let us know and we’d go down and let him into the garden, then straight back in the chair and off to sleep. I’d have never thought it possible until it happened.