Erratic Sleeping Patterns

[Joyce K]

Hello everyone,

I am a new member of this community of doodle owners. I joined this forum to meet other Doodle owners, to get advice, and for sanity checks. Our doodle, Abby, is 6 months old and is active and curious. She gets walks almost every day and when not walking, she is usually either playing with her toys, staring out the window, or seeing what mom and dad are up to. 

One area that I am most concerned about is Abby's erratic sleeping patterns. We usually have "night night" time at around 10:30-11:00 PM. Without fail, she is up at 4 AM, whimpering, whining, barking, and howling to be let out. When there's a calm in the 4 AM wake up storm, we let her out, and she always goes to the restroom. The challenge is then getting her back in her crate so the we can get some more shut eye. Sometimes she goes in really willingly, sleeps for another 30 minutes, and then is at it again to wake us up. Other times, we only get 10 minutes of quiet, and then she is up. When we let her out of her crate, she runs directly to her pillow (her napping pillow), right next to our bed. Then, if we allow her to, she sleeps there for another 2 hours. 

 Recently, we have been trying to get her to sleep in later. To do so, we covered her crate with a blanket, put clothes with our scent in her crate, and also let her "cry it out" for as long as we can bear. She has great stamina. She can go for at least an hour and a half and then I can't take it anymore. She's a smart cookie though. When she hears my footsteps when i get out of bed, she quiets immediately down. We limit her water beginning at 9 PM and she always gets a bathroom break immediately before bed. She eats dinner at around 6 or 6:30 PM. Also, we have tried playing really intense game of fetch before bed. That helps a little but did not get us to the goal of waking up closer to 5 or 5:30 AM.

I prefer not to let her sleep in our bed or in our room. Are there any solutions that you all can share with me that have worked... Any advice appreciated!

Thanks,
Joyce

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Daily leash walking is not enough exercise for a 6 month old doodle. She needs to be doing some off-leash running every day if possible. Try the intense game of fetch earlier in the day or evening, not right before bed, that may help. The more exercise she gets, the longer and better she will sleep.

I also agree with Sandy that it would help if you let her sleep on her pillow in your room. Dogs are pack animals and do not want to be isolated from them, especially when they are very young.

[Joyce K]

Hi Sandy & Karen, Thanks for your replies. I wasn't expecting anything so quickly!

To clarify, I don't mind that if Abby sleeps in our room on the pillow... it is more so a question of how to stop her crying at 4 AM. I feel like she really likes her crate, she goes in throughout the day, on her own accord. The 4 AM time just seems like the magical wake up time. I was looking for ways to prolong her sleep. Perhaps more intense exercise? When we take her on walks, we usually run with her but run more? What are the sleeping patterns of your doodles? When would be a good time to stop using crates?

Also, yes, we feed her in the morning and evening. We're feeding her Acana which she loves loves loves.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

My dogs have always slept in my room from the time they were reliably housebroken, and they have never woken me before I had to get up unless they were sick.

I believe that Abby may be waking around 4 a.m. because she hears the sounds of the world stirring...birdsong just before dawn, early morning vehicles, etc., and then she wants to be up and near you. If she was in your room, perhaps when these sounds started in the morning, she would just go back to sleep.You've said that she does this after you take her out and let her come back to your room, but if you put her back in the crate, she doesn't settle. 

 

[BG and Gavin]

If you can put her crate in/near your room or let her sleep on her pillow I think that is ideal.  When she wakes up, she probably feels alone (can't hear you breathing) and thats why she cries and then stops when she hears your footsteps.  Tonight when she wakes up, say a few soft spoken words or babble to her to reassure her and see if that works.

[F, Calla & Luca]

My doodles sleep most of the evening and then go out anywhere from 9:30 to 11:30 pm generally. Sometimes Luca will want to play part of the evening. Then they settle down, and unless one is not felling well they are good til I get up, usually a bit after 9. Sometimes, Calla , the early bird will stir a bit, scratch and jiggle her tags or something, I think to let me know she's ready to get up. But she'll settle down again. The first clue she has that I'm awake and she's on top of me looking for some head scratches etc.

[Julie and Charlie]

I gave in to Charlie. He gets up every morning at 5:30... not to go outside, but he wants to get in bed with me. So he spends from bedtime until 5:30 in his crate, and another 1-2 hours cat-napping on my bed. Works for us. I could move him outside the bedroom, but we tried that and he escaped his crate wanting to be in the bedroom.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I stopped crating both of my dogs pretty early on at night. They slept better outside of the crate and preferred the floor. I think they got hot. They stayed in the bedroom with us, with the door shut. I still crated them when I left during the day and had no problems with them going into their crates. We no longer use our crates. I like having the dogs with me in my bedroom (personal preference) and I'm more than happy to have them in bed with us. I will say Fudge would sleep all through the night and is a wonderful sleeper. Vern is not. He seems to get a second wind after awhile and can drive us nuts. They are all different and we have tried more exercise at night, etc. and he still seems to get up far more than Fudge. I do think Abby wants to know where you are and if she comes back into your room and sleeps for another two hours without disturbing you, it sounds like the perfect solution to me. I am all for anything that gets me more sleep :) Good luck.

[DJ & Chance]

As soon as I let Chance sleep outside of his crate, we both had peaceful nights of 7-9 hours of sleep. I "gave up" with the crate at night when he was only 9 weeks old, when he began sleeping at the foot of my bed.  He never had an accident at night!  I still use a crate during the day when I need to leave him for a few hours.

[Seana and Mikey]

Mikey is almost 5 months old and has a 4 am wakes time as well. I have him in my room but he still does not want to go back to bed - he wants to play! I keep a calm voice and take a treat up to his crate and leave it there. I find if I keep calm he keeps calm as well and goes back to sleep. The little guy is an early bird but so am I so he stays down for another hour or so.
I have noticed that he feeds off my energy so I really try to keep my voice calm and ensure he knows I am Alpha.

[Joyce K]

Do you think it is possible that Abby gets too hot in her crate? She has a crate pad and a little fleece blanket in her crate. Plus, we keep the house at around 68 degrees, but the hubs sleeps with a fan on for background noise and plus he runs a little hot :) Do you think that is why she is waking up? We took her for some off leash crazy fun runs -- once on Sunday night and once yesterday, Monday night. Sunday night she slept until 5 AM Monday morning (yay!!). Yesterday, we were not as successful. We got the 3:30 AM wake up call. Any suggestions? Thanks to everyone who replied!