How much does your doodle puppy sleep?

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

I remember all my other puppys taking really good and long naps that allowed me to get things done during the day.  I think I got the crack puppy that never sleeps.  The one area I can not complain about is night time. I put her in her cage at 9:00pm- set my alarm for 1:00am for a potty run (half of the time I have to drag her out of bed to go but the other half she is standing by the door) & then Hubby gets up for work and lets her out around 5:15am- Then I get out of bed about 8:00am.  She never makes a peep this whole time unless she needs an extra potty break or sooner one than 1:30.  With the runny poops clearing up she has not waken me at night since last week.

 

Any way once we are up at 8:00 she eats and then plays.... and plays... and plays and I have to be on the floor playing with her. If I try to get up and do things she will bark at me or if I try to sit on the couch she will jump up get into trouble.  I dont trust her enough to not be on the floor with her anyway with the chewing and potty training. As soon as I try to walk away and do a quick load of laundry she will have an accident so i try to do all that at night when DH can watch her or put her in her cage for a little so I can.

If im lucky at 10:30-11:00 she might take a 30-60 minute nap.  Some days I lock her in her cage around 9:30 until 10:30 because I need to shower and get my self ready for the day so I think she sleeps for about the hour or so I have her in there.

Then around 12:00 every day she goes back in the cage for me to do lunch and if its a preschool day to drop my daughter off.... She will be in there for about an hour.

1:00 I let her out feed her lunch then she plays, plays,plays..... today she did not take another nap until 6:30pm

I am now cooking dinner and then when dinner is ready I will put her in the cage while we eat for about 30 minutes.

 

I read most puppies sleep 18-20 hours why is mine not??? 

My memory of all my other puppies is play HARD for 30-45 minutes and then a good 1-2 hour nap and repeat this all day long.

 

Oh she is going to be 12 weeks Friday.

 

[Heather Martinez]

Maybe she is too excited to sleep when you are around and available to play? Teddy sleeps all day when we are at work, and I know that he needs the sleep because on weekends when he's up all day he crashes as early as 6pm (normally he goes to sleep around 8:30-9:00pm). If we put Teddy in his pen on the weekend he'll fall right to sleep, but if he's with us he'll be running around, playing with his toys or wanting us to play with him. I would suggest putting her in the pen for naps throughout the day so you can get things done, if she will tolerate being in there without barking. Teddy could not handle being in his pen when he knew we were in the house until he was much older. Another thing we did with Teddy is to tether a leash to a piece of furniture and put his bed and toys there. Then he couldn't run around and get into trouble, and he was much more likely to nap because he did not have as many distractions. Using this method, I could be in the same room or another room in sight of him so that he wouldn't start barking, and I was able to get more done.

[Jen, Lachlan, and Declan]

Sending you a sympathetic hug, Lindsey. Puppies are exhausting! I wish someone would have mentioned to my two that they're supposed to sleep lots! The good news is that it WILL get better, I promise.

I'll second Heather's suggestion to put her down for naps periodically. Mommy needs a breather sometimes!

[Pattty Oehrlein]

Oh dear, I feel your exhaustion. Quincy is 12 weeks too, and does not sleep much either. Well not much for me, when my DH comes home she is a sleeping lump at his feet- he is amazed at what a low maintenance puppy she is- ha! :) This week she has mastered up and down stairs and will go up to her bedroom crate and go in all by herself when she has had enough of us. Our schedule is bed time at 11pm- but she does lounge all night on and off from about 7pm on, then an overnight potty break and up between 7 and 8 am. I do the over nite potty break and that can be disruptive to say the least. We started at 4 hrs building to 6 now and she is pretty good (no accidents) (knock wood) - Yesterday she had her first play date with another dog- it was amazing how they went at it for almost two hours- after our little four legged pal left she was comatose the rest of the night. I never saw her so wiped out.  Maybe you could start to socialize her with another dog?

Good Luck and I'm hoping you get some rest soon!

[Lindsey & Cocoa]

I want to start socializing her and my inlaws are going to pay for us to start attending puppy preschool so we can start training on her but..... She has Giardia so I need to make sure that is 100% clear before we do an of that. We have friends who have a 3yr old Lab and 1yr old Great Dane that are hyper so we are hoping this summer to bring Cocoa with us when we take the kids over for play dates to wear the whole family out at once.

I am getting ready to go on vacation (DH will still be here) and when I get back I am going to start getting rid of that middle night potty break.  I am 7 months pregnant so I am hoping to be done with that before baby is born.

I cant complain to much because she sleeps the whole night... well at least does not whine or bark.

 

She does not mind her cage during the day so I can put her in there... I also have a 4yr old so it seems as soon as I put her in there I have to spend that whole time on my daughter and by the end of the day i never got anything done..lol

[Penny & Wrigley]

That is exactly what my husband thinks! He comes home and the pup is asleep at my feet. He misses the pyscho puppy play periods.