FD26 Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 (edited) I'm sure this has been done before lol, but... it's about 3 am and I'm sitting outside while Joker calmy chews on a toy I need some serious help here. Our 8 week old puppy got here 2 days ago and we're having a nightmare time with him waking in the night. First night the was up (for the day) at 2:30 am. We tried letting him cry in his crate after a quick trip outside but OH ended up taking him out around 3:30am. This morning, I took him out at 12am when he cried and he wouldn't sleep in the crate afterwards, just crying..so I picked him up and took him into bed to settle him down, because he'd wanted to play. He woke up again at 2am and OH took him outside. Brought him back and put him in the crate - crying, brought him into bed, playing....so now it's 3 am and I've been sitting outside with him for an hour so that he can play, but there's no sign of him settling. We didn't put him to bed until about 9pm last night, and his last nap he woke up from at 6pm. What's going on?? He did come from QLD, so I thought it may have been the time difference (only half an hour) or "jetlag", but he's up earlier today instead of later. And as far as crate training too, I think we're failing miserably. Should we be letting him cry it out? I reckon we should be, but OH is making this impossible. If Joker cries he'll tell him to "shush" which I think just gets him more upset. And then he'll either take him out or I feel like I have to before OH gets angry. Advice please??? Edited March 2, 2010 by FD26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laeral Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 I am no expert on crate training. God knows my dog needs some work in this area, however for what its worth.. Where is the crate located? Do you have it in your room so the puppy is close to you? Is he warm enough etc? Also could you perhaps set your alarm to wake up just before he normaly wakes up crying, take him out to toilet without making a fuss or talking to him. Then put him back in his crate. leave him, even if he cries, hard though that is. He needs to learn to settle and at the moment he is getting attention as soon as he wakes and gets to play. He is learning that crying = play time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
persephone Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Oh dear - sleep deprivation He will need to toilet during the night,possibly a few times at first. Now you have taken him into your bed,/let him chew on a toy.... he KNOWS that his behaviour brings rewards sitting outside with him for an hour so that he can play, but there's no sign of him settling. LOL! Of course he won't settle - he needs to learn- he does not know that night time means he should sleep for hours ...... but he does know that you will let him out and let him play- you're a nice Mum! 9 pm is an early night... and a very long one for a baby. he will cry- he is away from home, and little. I will leave it to others for advice- I have never crate trained a baby puppy,(only a piglet,and she was easy) so can't help, sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JulesP Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Unfortunately if you don't totally ignore the crying all you teach the pup is that if it cries that you will come get it. Get earplugs and ignore the pup. Get up a couple of times a night and take it out to the loo, apart from that don't fuss over it. They don't keep it up for long, I promise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
all that glitters Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Unfortunately if you don't totally ignore the crying all you teach the pup is that if it cries that you will come get it. Get earplugs and ignore the pup. Get up a couple of times a night and take it out to the loo, apart from that don't fuss over it. They don't keep it up for long, I promise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules46 Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 (edited) Hi Everyone Here is a pic of our beautiful Flynn. He is an absolute delight..... Off to puppy school tonight. FD26 - Sorry to hear that Joker is not settling at night. Not sure if this is of any help, as we are completely new to it, but this is what we do..... We move Flynn's crate into our room at night and cover the crate over with a blanket, so he knows it's his 'bedtime'. (We just leave a window so he can see us wandering around). We do not give him any attention at all. We carry on getting ready for bed and just ignore him. He watches what we are doing and seems to settle down. When he wakes for the loo, we keep everything very quiet and say very little to him, so he knows that there is no play to be had. We ignore any crying he makes (although very hard to do!), but it does seem to be working at the moment. Obviously it is still early days for us (5th night), so we are hoping it is not the 'calm before the storm'! You must all be exhausted....but you may just to have 'bite the bullet' and really be strong with him and not give in to his mischief......Naughty Joker! Edited March 2, 2010 by Jules46 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poodlefan Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 (edited) Put the crate beside your bed in your room. Take puppy out for a pee if he wakes then PUT HIM BACK IN THE CRATE AND LEAVE HIM THERE Every time you put him on the bed, you change the rules out how and when he is to sleep. You make it that much harder for the next time he wakes. If you want him to sleep in the crate through the night then that is the lesson you need to enforce. Be consistent. A few nights of sleeplessness will reap benefits. I found a quite word of reassurance and a hand throught the crate bars to settlle Howie was all that was required. I took him out every time he stirred and then he went straight back to the crate. He was sleeping through the night within 2 week.s Edited March 2, 2010 by poodlefan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FD26 Posted March 2, 2010 Author Share Posted March 2, 2010 Hi, thanks guys. His crate is in our room right next to the bed covered in a blanket. The temperature should be pretty good because we sleep with the aircon on but it's never cold here lol. He has his favourite blankets in there and a big stuffed toy because he likes to sleep between things. He doesn't mind going in there of a night, and even goes in of a day and has a wander around and comes out. I think I will have to convince the OH we need to tough it out then. It's what I thought from the get go, but it has been quite hard to deal with his cries - he's a VERY vocal little guy and his cries turn to screaming howls pretty quickly! This morning when I came back inside I was exhausted and fed up and said to my OH "don't say a word or get him out because I'm not getting up again, if you take him out he's yours" lol...so he cried for about 10 minutes and then all was silent. He cries and barks about everything, at the drop of a hat lol..we're not used to this at all as our last pup only cried for the toilet and we only heard him bark one time ever lol. He is slowly getting better at associating outside with the toilet, with lots of accidents still inside, often right after we bring him in lol. Hopefully as he begins to realise in the day that when we put him on the grass it's time to toilet he'll understand it better in the night, too. That's a good idea about the alarm, too...will try that tonight. It would probably be better if he didn't learn making this horrible noise got results lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KritalJay Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 Oh FD26 you poor thing, I really hope that it gets better for you and that Joker settles down. Your scarying me a little bit though. We pick up our lil guy Boss on Friday night. Though I think that he will be ok (fingers crossed) as he will have Lola to sleep with and settle down. Sending hugs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolving Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 With Echo I put the crate near the bed and if she got up whinging in the morning I got up took her outside to pee and put her back in her crate. I would then turn the radio back on for her to listen to to get back to sleep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FD26 Posted March 2, 2010 Author Share Posted March 2, 2010 Oh FD26 you poor thing, I really hope that it gets better for you and that Joker settles down. Your scarying me a little bit though. We pick up our lil guy Boss on Friday night. Though I think that he will be ok (fingers crossed) as he will have Lola to sleep with and settle down. Sending hugs Don't worry too much KritalJay, the breeder did warn me that he was the most vocal puppy and that we'd need earplugs to crate train lol. She said all the other pups would look at him like "what are you crying for?" so hopefully your guy won't be such a sook! lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenWei Posted March 2, 2010 Share Posted March 2, 2010 I don't have much advice, I gave up on crate training the first night, and cheated and put my golden in with her. She has been an angel ever since. I started trying to get her to stay in there for daytime naps, she still wasn't happy, but I did find that if I put a freshly worn t-shirt in with her she would settle. Not sure if it would make much difference to you as she is sleeping in your room anyway, but willow would curl up on top of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FD26 Posted March 2, 2010 Author Share Posted March 2, 2010 I don't have much advice, I gave up on crate training the first night, and cheated and put my golden in with her. She has been an angel ever since. I started trying to get her to stay in there for daytime naps, she still wasn't happy, but I did find that if I put a freshly worn t-shirt in with her she would settle. Not sure if it would make much difference to you as she is sleeping in your room anyway, but willow would curl up on top of it. How cute is that? He doesn't mind going in for sleeps in the day, actually if I put him in there and shut the door he just sort of looks at me and falls asleep. I think we've introduced him to it fairly well, it's just when he wakes up that the trouble begins. But, hopefully with some of the advice given I can convince my OH I was right and it will settle down soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KritalJay Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Oh that is so cute that the other puppies looked at Joker like that. I can just see it now. I'll be sure to let you know how Boss goes on his first night on Friday. Fingers crossed that Joker gets better and you can get some rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WreckitWhippet Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 No games, no fun and no talking during toilet stops, other than using a toilet command and a " good boy" when he's done. Remove all toys from the yard before bed time, so there's nothing exciting to do when he gets out there at 2am. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FD26 Posted March 3, 2010 Author Share Posted March 3, 2010 Well, I don't know if it was luck but we had a great night last night!! Joker was trying desperately to sleep all day, but after about 4pm we didn't let him sleep for any longer than 30 minutes at a time. Stopped all food (but left the water) at 7pm, and made sure he had plenty of time to toilet outside. I was in the loungeroom playing with him around 9 and he started getting a bit sooky to get on the lounge (where we let him sleep sometimes in the day) so I thought okay...bedtime. So in he went to his crate at 9pm. After a good hour of crying right off the bat I was feeling guilty, thinking I'd put him in there prematurely. But, instead of letting him out OH took him to the toilet and put him straight back in and we found a little radio for him. It still took him awhile to settle, but he was asleep at about 10:30pm. We were too tired to remember setting any alarms to take him out and I figured we'd just wait til he cried and take him calmy out - so we woke up to his cries - and it was 6am!!!! :p It was sooo nice to get a proper sleep lol. I'm so happy with him right now too, after squatting inside lol I brought him out and he's done a poo and a wee I'm feeling like we're finally getting somewhere this morning!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SammieS Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 FD26 I'm so happy for you... I was telling my husband about this last night and we were remembering the sleepless nights we had for 2 weeks with our Frenchie! Let's hope tonight is just as successful Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules46 Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 FD26 - That's great news....so glad you got some decent sleep! We went to puppy pre-school last night and they were telling us how important it is that we make it known that we are the 'pack leader'. This obviously needs to work across the whole spectrum of the puppy's development including sleep time! Flynn was growling at my ankles and nipping at them this morning.....bring it on puppy!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KritalJay Posted March 3, 2010 Share Posted March 3, 2010 Gold Star Joker!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bundyburger Posted March 4, 2010 Share Posted March 4, 2010 (edited) Put the crate beside your bed in your room. Take puppy out for a pee if he wakes then PUT HIM BACK IN THE CRATE AND LEAVE HIM THERE Every time you put him on the bed, you change the rules out how and when he is to sleep. You make it that much harder for the next time he wakes. If you want him to sleep in the crate through the night then that is the lesson you need to enforce. Be consistent. A few nights of sleeplessness will reap benefits. I found a quite word of reassurance and a hand throught the crate bars to settlle Howie was all that was required. I took him out every time he stirred and then he went straight back to the crate. He was sleeping through the night within 2 week.s Same as PF.. however we found every time we moved he'd wake up so we relegated the pup to the lounge room. He was waking up for toilets when OH went to work so it was easy to co-ordinate for the few days before he slept through. If you get him up for a play at 3am you'll never get anywhere as he will think this is how it should be! Be tough and soon you'll have a pup who sleeps through and you'll wonder what the fuss was about Edited March 4, 2010 by Bundy's Mum Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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