Advice please that’s not “put her in bed with you”

[Newyearnewmewoooop]

8 week old puppy Maltipoo. She’s only been home 2 nights, both awful with not much sleep (to be expected, I know she’s like a newborn ripped away from her family)

Can anyone advise how to proceed, am I doing the right I thing? She has a crate in kitchen which is in a playpen, so the door to crate is open and she has access to water and puppy pads if needed.

last night she literally cried every hour, with small periods of sleep every two hours. I go in regularly and soothed, as I’m sleeping on settee until she’s settles

Everyone I speak to says to just put her in my bed, but I don’t want to start with bad habits.

Should I be doing anything differently? She has a blanket with mums scent on, plus I have a teddy with a heart beat being delivered today.

Can you stay on the sofa all night? She’s obviously waking and finding you not there distressing.
it is hard, but we had a rota going so pup was never on his own at night, particularly for the early days.

For us it lasted two months 😮‍💨 but now two years later it’s a distant memory.
it created a secure dog and great attachment.

You've got a dog that is a mix of two incredibly (and I cannot stress this enough) incredibly clingy breeds - both were bred to be with their people and/or other dogs. She's spent her whole life up until now with all her littermates and mum. Now she's in a strange place and abandoned every night. This isn't an aloof dog breed that can be left alone from day dot.

This isn't a quick fix, I am afraid. Going to her every now and then risks making it worse - you'll make her think that you'll come eventually, so she won't learn. But you absolutely cannot leave her crying. Unfortunately, you've rather made a rod for your own back here.

If you won't have the dog in your bed, you have to move the crate upstairs or you need to move her crate to closer to the sofa - preferably next toyou. Sleeping on the sofa but not near her is not going to do any good.

Can you play her something during the day when she sleeps? We use heavy rain sound effects. Play it every time she’s asleep and she’ll associate it with safety and sleep time. So when you do the same at night, hopefully it will teach her to relax and that she’s safe. We did this with our now 6 mo pup, and she happily sleeps 8pm to 8am in her crate. We have to wake her up 😂

Have you tried the hotwater bottle and ticking clock ?
Or sleep near her for a while so she can settle.

You need to be close to her. However you make that look. You on a blow up mattress in the kitchen or her in the living room/hallway with you.
The more she is left feeling distressed, the longer she will feel this way.
If you leave her she may eventually give up asking for help and you will feel the problem is solved, but she will be full of stress hormones and will be a nervous, reactive wreck as she grows up. I do one household only dog walking and sitting and I can see immediately which dogs have been left alone from tiny. The whole world is a scary place for them.

I think you know what the answer is here. Only other option is a second dog. They aren’t made to sleep alone. And having her near you isn’t a bad habit.

We went camping with our puppy which worked wonders. Not sure if I would recommend that in this weather 😉

Yes , agreed ( ddog is now 11 and sleeps on the floor next to me )

Just put her in a crate in your bedroom. Move the crate slowly away from the bed. We started with the crate up on a table.

It took us about 3 months. They are like babies. It was something about getting a puppy that I didn’t realise.

We crate trained our dachshund (also a needy breed) but you need to do it gradually. For the first week he was in a crate in our room right next to the bed (with the door closed) so if he cried I could talk to him and stroke him. Once he started waking less we moved the crate a couple of metres away, then a week later, onto the landing, then into the spare room. Only once he slept well there did we move him downstairs. All in it took about 6 weeks but after that he would happily trot off to his crate each evening when he got tired.

Echoing everyone else, you need to sleep next to her until she settles in and feels secure. She’s been removed from her mum and her litter. She needs to wake up and see you right there, ideally close enough that you can reach a hand out and touch her. If you’re not going to have her in your bed then either sleep on the sofa with the crate next to it, or the crate next to your bed.

You don’t have to put her in your bed, but could you put the crate in your bedroom? She’ll probably settle better knowing you’re nearby. My dog still sleeps in a crate in our room, that’s her bed and safe place and I don’t even close the door anymore. It’s early days and she needs to feel safe and reassured so you don’t compound the separation anxiety and make it worse.

With my dog when he was a puppy we had a crate downstairs. But after the first two nights of very broken sleep when we bought him home as an 8 week old, we put a cat carrier inside the crate (he is a small breed) with his mum’s blanket in, and also covered the top of the crate with a blanket so it was all much cosier. Crate door shut though. Then we put the radio on - radio 4 - and a small nightlight near his crate so it wasn’t completely dark.

He actually never woke up in the night again once we did that, and still sleeps happily in his crate all night now. His breed isn’t particularly known for separation anxiety so not sure if it would work for you but might be worth a try? Or at least think about cosiness.

Yes you need to be near her. I have said this on another thread that a trainer told us it’s easier to be near them where you would like them to sleep and retreat gradually. This was after we gave up and let the dog upstairs. I am not sure how long this gradual retreat takes. Our dog discovered her bark and we let her up as didn’t want to teach her that barking means we come.

my dog breed is a companion breed and does that very well! I would advise seeing out a good trainer to support with this and be prepared to sleep downstairs for a while.

Hmm sounds like I need to relocate the cage

Dogs are pack animals. They’re not meant to sleep alone.

Hi OP,

We wanted our boy to sleep in the kitchen in a crate so we took it in turns each night to sleep on a single mattress on the kitchen floor by the crate. We incredibly gradually moved the mattress further away each night, and I mean inches. We had a few blip nights but it did work for us and meant we each normally got a good sleep every other night.
He learnt to paw the crate door for attention, and we always took him outside on a lead to toilet when he did this with minimal fuss and no talking, and he did get the gist pretty quickly that pawing the door equals toilet. We taught the "toilet" cue which I think helped with this.

Poor little thing. They really cannot cope being alone, dogs haven’t evolved for it and the mix you have there was bred to be with people. Relocate the crate or get another dog tbh would be your only options. And who says a dog in the bedroom is a bad habit?! Ours have each other but if one was alone they’d come upstairs.

Either you need to sleep downstairs right next to the crate, or have the crate upstairs in your room by the bed. It doesn’t have to be forever.

Remember your puppy has always slept with its’ mum and siblings overnight, and now they’re in a strange house with strange people and no company. It will take a while to adjust and settle.

I’ve always had our dogs sleep with us. We had to buy a bigger bed!

I have a mini poodle who is 12 weeks old. He came home with us at 10.5 weeks and I’m still sleeping in the living room with him! First night was so exhausting that the second night we slept together on a mattress and had a full night sleep. Since then he’s slowly been getting later with the waking and I’ve been returning him to his crate (in a pen) when he wakes up. We found that covering the crate has helped a lot and this week we’ve been closing his crate door and covering in preparation to either leaving him downstairs or bringing him into our room. Either way I want to ensure he is safe in the crate and not wandering around our room or downstairs at night! I’ve had my puppy for over a week now and it is getting much easier now! 😅

I slept on the sofa with the crate next to me for the first 2 weeks, until pup was reliably going 8 hours without needing a wee, then the crate moved into my bedroom, door opened when I could trust him to sleep all night and not chew anything, and then eventually swapped for a bed.

over 40 yrs ago my Mum used to wrap an old clock in a warm towel and put it in with the pup at night, they would cuddle up to the warmth and the ticking of the clock would sound like their mothers heart beat and soothe them. Always worked a treat.

Hi! My advice based on my own dog was dont bring her up to you, go down to her. So you are doing the right think being on the sofa, you just might need to bring her closer.

Look at it like this: you are a stranger to her and its going to take her a few days/weeks to really bond with you, she is growing to love you but she needs to settle in with you and her surroundings before she is comfortable enough to think 'this is my house, and my personal is upstairs and will come down in the morning'

We slept next to her, us on the sofa then bed on the floor, then started to move the bed further away from us each night. She would inevitably climb into bed, but we would plop her back into her own bed every time and eventually she tired of this and stayed put. Think we went back upstairs at two weeks, probably could have done sooner but we didnt want her to panic and set us back.

Some potential things to consider: has she got a nice fluffy blanket that smells like you? Consider stuffing it in your jumper for a bit in the day to get your smell on it, and puppies sometimes seem to want to feel like they are still in a basket of puppies, so a fluffier, softer bed than an adult needs will help (...okay, so my dog has not grown out of wanting to sleep on a fluffy blanket)
Have you got a nice little bedtime routine going - last week, tuck her into bed, turn the lights off?

Move the crate into your bedroom. We resisted too long, resulting in many broken nights. Eventually gave in and moved his bed (we didn't use a crate) into our room. No further problems. Dpuppy then fairly soon decided of his own accord to sleep in the other dog bed downstairs.