11 week old not settling down at night

[Brianna and Rhubarb]

Hi everyone!

Our 11 week old goldendoodle puppy Rhubarb has been such a wonderful addition to our family. Things are going well, with all of the usual puppy mishaps woven in.

My question is about her sleep habits at night. At about 9:30pm, she happily passes out in the front hallway on the tile (she is adverse to blankets and dog beds!). She will sleep there until we go to bed at 10:15 or 10:30 pm, and we bring her up to sleep in her crate next to our bed.

This is when the party starts. Last night (like most nights), she shuffled around in her crate, constantly repositioning herself, not sleeping until 1:00 in the morning. She doesn't whine or cry, isn't thirsty and doesn't have to go out - it almost sounds like she can't get comfortable. She is a big girl (20.5 pounds at 11 weeks) and when she picks herself up and thumps back onto the wall of the crate, it is enough to keep us up. She'll move around every 30 seconds or so, usually for 30 minutes to an hour.

Her crate is the right size (she doesn't mess it, so she has room to stretch out if she wants it) We have tried a variety of different 'comfort materials' in her crate (blankets, a pet bed, etc), all of which she digs aside in order to reach the plastic bottom. She eventually does settle down and sleep until 6:30, but I'm exhausted from lack of sleep.

My question is this - should I leave her sleeping in the front hall? I read that it is beneficial for puppies to sleep with their 'pack', and she definitely is more content when we're close by. Do your dogs sleep in the bedroom? How do you deal with their grunts, thumps and bangs? Are earplugs the solution? Sleeping in the crate downstairs?

Thanks for any help that you can give me!

-Brianna

[Kim Starbuck]

Hi Brianna! My puppy is about 12.5 weeks, and he is definitely quite the shuffler too. He also makes occasional whimpers like he is having a strange dream or something??? He does sleep in my bedroom, and I have been sleeping with ear plugs in and it helps immensely! I really don't ever hear him. 

He has always slept in my room, so I'm not sure how he would do sleeping in another room -- other thoughts? I personally would highly recommend the ear plugs!

[Tammie Ciesielka]

Rhubarb is a cutie :)  Our puppy, Roxy didn't sleep well in her crate either.  Since she was doing so well with potty training, we decided to tie her leash to our bedpost so she was still contained but could stretch out better.  That helped immensely!  After about another month, we let her have free range of our bedroom at night.  She has never had an accident and we are sleeping much better.  Kim is correct also.  I used ear plugs for a while before I gave into the leash on the bedpost.  It really helped!!

[Stephanie Brown]

Our Rigby is 11 weeks also and is 19.5 lbs.  I was exhausted for the first few weeks as well.  He does pretty well in his crate, I had it downstairs and he cried longer, then I put him in the bedroom in his crate.  He did better when we put the crate in our room with us, he cried a lot less.  We also have fans going and try to make it cooler for him.  This last week, we put him on the bed with us and he's slept from 9:30pm until at least 6 am every day! (yes we should know better, but he's our baby and this is what we did anyway whether people think it is right or not)  He loves sleeping between us, on us, and just him and I if my husband feels like he's been kicked out of Rigby and my bed! :) LOL  He's been great sleeping with us, I hardly know he's there.  He loves it and sleeps all night.  I have actually slept better this week!  Good luck!

[Pilar, Sophie & Rico]

Hi Brianna, have to tell u that I laughed reading your post. We too are going through this. Here's what I've done for my 13 week who can't be trusted to sleep out of the crate...yet- I wrap a towel around the pan that is in the crate and I works so that i can't hear him toss and turn so much. When my other doodle became trained we quickly let her sleep out of the crate but she still makes a lot of noise hitting the walls with her shuffling and she's 15 months! I even bought her a bed with the bolsters and it didn't help. Lol

[BettyAnn, Holmes & Lucy]

I had the exact same problems with my puppy at around that same age. He's a little bit older now at 4 mos. old. What I ended up doing was putting his crate out in the adjoining room to my bedroom so I couldn't hear all his little noises but could hear him bark to go out to potty. The first 2 or 3 days he would whine/yowl/bark for about 10 min. at 2 am. I could hear him and I KNEW he didn't need the bathroom and he just settled right down and went back to sleep. Luckily he didn't wake up anyone else in the house- they're all better sleepers than me, I guess. And now he usually wakes up around 4:30 to pee but then afterwards he runs into my room and settles down on the floor besides me and will sleep until the alarm clock goes off in a couple hours. 

Good luck w/ what you choose to do! Hopefully Rhubarb is flexible and will go along w/ what works for you both.

[Brianna and Rhubarb]

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

I think we're definitely going to invest in earplugs for the next few weeks. It's nice to know that it might not be that long before she doesn't have to be crated at night. Right now, she is still pretty unpredictable with the pee (and our room is carpeted!)

[Whitney Addington]

Hi Brianna! We had the same problem with our girl, too! We thought about letting her sleep out of her crate of the night, but did a little research and that is a big part of crate training. Anyway, we came to the conclusion she was hot with the big fleece-like bed that was in there! We removed it and put down a small old blanket and she did much better! So maybe try something lighter in the crate. When she was about 5 months, we started letting her sleep out of her crate but left it open for her in case she wanted to get in it in the night. We kept her locked into our bedroom so she couldn't just roam free in the house. Come to find out she loves sleeping under the bed! She is a little over a year old and we no longer use the crate during the day or at night. She is too big to be under the bed, but she shimmies right under there and sleeps sound all night.

Good Luck!

[Star and Goldie]

Goldie has never slept in the same room as me and she has always slept without a peep and no stirring.  She sleeps in her crate in the living room and I sleep in my bedroom (of course).

You might try putting the crate in the space in the hall that she likes and see if she sleeps better there. Goldie absolutely needs me close by when I'm home during the day and evening but for sleeping time it's just not something that she needs. There is nothing wrong with separate sleeping spaces.

Also, the fact that she is sleeping and then being woken up to move into a different area could really be throwing her sleep pattern off and her body might be trying to tell her that it's wake up time and that is causing her to be restless. At that age (and still now) we have an "energy party" right before bed time every night.  They were only about 10 minutes at that age but as she gets older their more active.  A few minutes of fetch will allow her to release some energy and will probably help her sleep better.

Good luck! Keep us posted on what works for you!

[Itims]

Hi Brianna,

Tire her out more OR try to keep her from napping in the last 2 hours before bedtime OR tire yourself out. The last worked excellently for me:) 

Good luck! We had similar issues though only recently (she is 21 weeks/ 5 months) so we let her sleep free in our room and have had no accidents etc. 

[Ellen & GIBBS]

What a cute puppy you have! It will be a week tomorrow eve ever since we got our doubledoodle. GIBBS is 8 wks old. He sleeps in his unlocked crate at night in our downstairs area while all our bedrooms are on the 2nd level. He has his own pen.He didn't like the first crate bed I got for him, but he absolutely loves the 2nd bed. It is the "Dogit X-Gear Waterproof Dog Mat" (Item: 13250350) I bought from Petsmart. He uses the pottypad in the middle of the night, otherwise he whines to be let out to our backyard to do his business. Although lately, he has been holding it in until we let him out to the backyard at 6am.
We also leave the AM radio on for him to listen to and a nightlight since he does not like total silence and darkness. Who does, anyway?

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Kona is 7.5 months old and still sleeps in his crate every night.  He stayed in my room with me until he outgrew his smaller crate at 4 months old, and then I moved him into the kitchen where he has been for the past 3 months in his "big boy" crate.  In those 3 months, he has only whimpered about 4 or 5 nights, and each time, I let him out on a leash to pee.  If he doesn't within 5 or 6 minutes, he goes right back into his crate.  I think he's learned that his whimpering only allows a controlled potty break and zero play, so he usually just plops down with those pathetic upturned eyes and resigns himself to "bed time".  (Two of those times, he really did have to pee and poo, so it's good to listen to the rare whimpering for me.   Other times, I can tell he just doesn't want to go to bed)