Best bed and night time routine for 10 week puppy - such conflicting advice

[gotthearse]

Hi my 10 week lab is fed 8.30 am 12.30 pm and 4.30 pm. Plenty of day naps. DD19 is around to entertain her all day. Taken out to toilet every hour to an hour and a half, after eating, after waking etc

She is usually asleep on the sofa between 8.30 pm and 9 pm, and put to bed in her crate by my bed at around 10 if she wakes and is being a menace, or when DH comes up around midnight if she stays snoring on the sofa. She will whine in the crate by the bed for 5 mins before passing out. Doesn't love it but accepts it more now, it was 30 mins when she first came home.

She is taken for a toilet at midnight either way and is waking for a poo and wee around 2.30 am and another wee at 4-5 am. Then wakes at half six for another wee, at this point I get up and she will snooze with me on the sofa until her breakfast time, but would whine if put back in the bedroom crate.

This routine is killing us. Breeder says take up her water up at six, put her to bed at 10 in the kitchen in a crate and leave her, we might wake up to a mess but she'll soon learn and it's what she is used to. On line says she is still tiny and to suck it up until she is bigger and can last longer.

Both versions say if I don't do it their way I'll have a cling on with separation anxiety.

I don't know what to do for the best. We won't hear her in our room if she is downstairs.

Please help!

Hi,

Sorry you're struggling with disturbed sleep. It is very exhausting to begin with, until you establish a good routine.

It's a personal thing as to whether you want your dog sleeping in the bedroom or downstairs in the kitchen. I prefer mine downstairs, so I train accordingly by sleeping on the sofa while they are little. I don't crate but pup is in the kitchen behind a dog gate, I'm close by and can hear if they ask to go out. Some nights I would be up several times to take pup outside, other nights not at all. The disturbed nights don't last forever, and most pups will be fully toilet trained and able to sleep through by about 4 months.

My current girl mostly slept under the dining table when she was tiny. One of us would sit in with her until she went to sleep, then we'd leave the room. We had no issues with whining, other than when she was asking to be let outside. It helps to teach them the word "bedtime" or "sleepytime" for night and "settle" for daytime naps.

At that age a puppy should really still be on 4 meals. 4.30pm to 8.30am is a long time without food for a puppy of 10 weeks. They're like babies and they settle better if they're fed regularly. I still feed my girl at 7am, 12pm, 5pm and 9pm and she's very much older. I don't take the water up.

Everything will fall into place with your pup in the coming weeks but it's very early days right now, so it will be hard work. There is a puppy support thread that might be helpful to you, and it does reassure that others are experiencing exactly the same. Puppies are bloody knackering, but it will get easier.

To start with, I put mine to bed at 10, got up at midnight, 2, 4 and up at 6. Then every three nights I extended the interval by a quarter of an hour, so 12.15, 2.30, 4.45, then 12.30, 2.45, 5.00. I wrote it down to keep track. I never had an overnight accident. He's a Lab, brought home at 8 weeks, now nearly 4.

If you limit her water overnight (not none, but a small amount) take her out at 10 and then again at 6, she should be fine after two nights.

I do agree with the breeder to an extent - retriever puppies learn to be clean quickly, in a night or so. They’re far easier that most other dogs. At ten weeks, my youngest could hold her her bladder for 10 hours overnight or during the day - particularly if she didn’t want to go out. Not because she’s a star, but she just got used to routine.

The breeder isn’t necessarily advocating to leave her in her wee forevermore, but in a night or two the puppy will learn 😊The longer you keep waking up and going to get to let her out, the longer this will last.

I'd start with adjusting the feeding, that's a ridiculous schedule for a 10 week old pup. 16 hours between meals. Pup is probably waking up hungry and then wants to go to the toilet rather than waking needing the toilet. We did 6.30, 11.30, 3.30, 8.30 at that age

Mine have never messed overnight (also labs), but did need a single overnight toilet trip for a few weeks. Bed at 10, toilet at 3ish, up at 6.30. We never woke them, just waited for them to wake us so it just gradually moved later until they were going all through the night. We've never limited access to water.

Please don’t take her water away - it’s one of the basic five freedoms of animal care that they should have constant access to fresh, clean water.

In terms of sleep, whatever you do you need to be consistent. It’s not popular on here these days but our beagle slept in our bed and just woke us in the night if he needed a wee - twice for the first week or so, then once another month (ish). He never had any accidents and he went straight back to sleep once he’d been out.

I wouldn’t take her for a wee in the night unless she’s waking up and asking though.

This Is what we did with our border collie puppy from 9 weeks old. First night he slept in crate from 10pm till 3am, fed 4 times a day, cried in crate for 15 minutes. Second night didn’t cry, but found he’d done a poo in the crate when he woke at 3am, he wasn’t fussed with his last meal, so we gave him 3 meals with no food other than a biscuit before bedtime. This seemed to help, but also tried to make sure he’d been to toilet before bedtime. Same happened, next few nights, he also chewed all his blankets, water bowl was upside down, so bedding was wet. I replaced soft bedding with thin blankets, he didn’t seem to want to do his business on these and we soon began to see him sleeping a little later 2 weeks after and by about 14 weeks, he was sleeping through, no accidents.

Hi OP. I have a lab puppy too. Had him from 8 weeks - he is nearly 7 months old now.

He is my first dog so I will only say what worked for us in case it is helpful.

He’s always had four meals a day - roughly at 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm. I remember our breeder saying food stimulates their bowels so not to feed later than 7pm if you don’t want to get up in the night! Not sure how true that is though.

I crate trained mine to begin with. Crate downstairs and I stayed down stairs with him until he settled. Which took longer than expected, ha. He was going 7 hours overnight from the first day.
He’s only wet his crate once in that time. He has been sleeping in bed with me since he was about 5 months old as I found we both got a better nights’ sleep that way! He’s a little hit and miss, on the odd occasion he will wake me up at 3am for a wee! Most of the time he can go 10 hours though.

I also remember my breeder telling me I would give my pup separation anxiety because I wasn’t being strict enough with leaving him alone. I got some excellent advice from some of the posters on this forum and trusted my gut. My pup doesn’t have SA at all. Would he prefer to have company all the time? Of course; he’s a lab! But he’s fine with being left alone. Although the longest I will leave him is 2 hours and that’s not all that often. I just went very slowly on that front and it seems to have worked. Although we have adolescence to get through yet 😂

Thanks, should I shut the crate up, or leave the door open - her downstairs crate is in a larger playpen. Also if we do toilet at 11 will we get thru to 7am after a couple of nights - I'll cope with 7 way better than 6!

10 hours sounds like heaven. I will have a completely different relationship with her once I get some sleep. A few health issues that came up after I put the deposit down have made the lack of sleep way more challenging than I expected.

@gotthearse yeah 11-7 should work as well. She may well cry the first night of so, and she might wee in her crate once or twice, but she will be okay and get over it.

I would shut the crate, if only because I think if you leave the door open she may wee in the playpen and will 'differentiate' it from her sleeping area. If she has no choice but to wee in the crate, she'll be more motivated to learn to hold it overnight more quickly.

In theory, waking up every few hours - or whenever the puppy cries - to let them out is great. But realistically, it's not sustainable in the long term. Overnight toilet training is one of the very few times where I advocate a slightly 'harsher' position when it comes to puppies - because lack of sleep makes everything so much harder, and it makes people snappier with the puppies, and honestly a human with no sleep is worse than a puppy peeing in their crate once or twice.

As @VanGoSunflowers and I have said, labs are really quick to toilet train and they have remarkably strong bladders.

FWIW, I feed my youngest puppy at 6, 12 and 6 and have done since the rest of her littermates (they're allGolden Retrievers) went home. She's never had any issues with starvation overnight😀If you do feed later, you do run the risk of no.2s in the crate and a puppy that's even more insistent it's allowed out later!

As @LandSharksAnonymous says, getting sleep is so important. It makes everything else easier to cope with! I am much less patient when I am tired!

I never set an alarm or anything to take mine out in the night and he never really needed to apart from the odd occasion. Can also testify to them toilet training very quickly and having strong bladders! I remember in the first week (it was raining a lot despite it being June) I was taking my puppy outside every half an hour as all the advice I had read. It was way too often 😂 I had lots of staring down at a little puppy, holding an umbrella over us both while he looked at me as if I was crazy and evil.

FWIW, I feed my youngest puppy at 6, 12 and 6 and have done since the rest of her litter mates went home

That's only a 12 hour gap, rather than the 16 the OP is doing. Would have still been too long for mine as they were both hunger pukers.

You are making a rod for your own back. My dog slept in his room downstairs from the day he came home, shut in from circa 11.30pm until 7am no issues at all. Getting up in the night really isn’t needed

I was taking my puppy outside every half an hour as all the advice I had read. It was way too often 😂 I had lots of staring down at a little puppy, holding an umbrella over us both while he looked at me as if I was crazy and evil.

This has just really made me chuckle @VanGoSunflowers 😆Our girl lab is 4 now and I have such clear memories of DH and I out in the garden waiting for her to wee or poo while she gave us a dirty look and curled up for a nap on the grass...

We didn't get her until she was 12 or 13 weeks, so not sure what she was like at 10 weeks.

We did find in the first 2 weeks that she was far more likely to settle / not mess inside if she was with one or both of us, as even going down every 2 hours she was overexcited / had pooed and weed. By 15 weeks she was reliably fine overnight for a good 7-8 hours and I remember feeling like a new woman. That being said we decided we were comfortable having her upstairs / on the bed at that stage and I appreciate that's not for everyone.

Thank you everyone, you have all been completely brilliant, I feel much more confident about what to do now. I will start the new regime tomorrow and report back in a few days.

@gotthearse we have a puppy survival thread running on this forum too if you wanted to join 😊
Fingers crossed the new routine works for you!

I’ve had 2 puppies and both times they have slept in the kitchen downstairs on their dog beds, I don’t have a crate just close the kitchen door.

They both cried the first night and we went down a few times to comfort them but even by the second night they cried less and no crying by night 3.

Yes you come down to a mess every morning for weeks but at least you get a decent night’s sleep. They naturally learn to do their business outside when they are able to hold it and we never restricted their water. I would give the last meal a bit later because it’s a long time for your puppy to go without food from 4.30pm. We start with 4 meals a day when they are tiny, then 3 then 2.

Good Luck! This is the hardest stage in my opinion. Teenage dogs can also be hard sometimes but at least they are house trained!

firstly it’s very early days and they soon start sleeping through it’s a stage it won’t last forever.

if you are going to leave her downstairs in a crate don’t leave her to soil it. I’d be tempted to leave her downstairs somewhere with a hard floor, no crate, and just quietly clean up any mess in the morning and concentrate on day time housetraining. If she’s distressed on her own, and she still is tiny and a baby still, sleep down there with her.

Or, again don’t crate, have her upstairs and take her out when she lets you know, it’s knackering and means she’ll always sleep upstairs….but doesn’t last for ever.

I agree with @HelloCharming about cleaning up the mess in the mornings with no emotion positive or negative, if you do decide to leave a puppy in the kitchen.

Sometimes I questioned it myself how they would learn not to wee/poo inside if no displays any negativity around that behaviour.

But they do - all it takes is a bit of positive reinforcement every time they happen to wee/poo in the correct place (outside) & they do start to do it outside every time once they are older and can hold it for longer.

So she went in the crate with the door open into the play pen. We had a wee the first night, a poo the second and absolutely no problems at night since. She goes in the crate at about half nine, gets wee'd at midnight when DH goes to bed and has been going through to 7 am absolutely fine.

Thank God I came on here or I would still be fannying about in garden and 3am and loosing my mind.

A baby was a lot easier what with the Oxytocin and no work the next day :)

That’s great news @gotthearse that you are now getting a good nights sleep 💤