Sleeping through the night

[Amy K.]

Hello all,

Our family will be getting our puppy in a couple of weeks (a very curly, tan golden doodle who will be named "Oscar" :-). We're all very excited but I'm wary of the first few days, in particular with helping him sleep through the night. We're going to use a crate, we're getting a "snuggle puppy," and our breeder is going to give us a toy or blanket that will smell like his mama and littermates. Our plan is to have the crate downstairs near the family room and that my husband and I will take turns sleeping near him to reassure him during the night and/or take him out for potty breaks.

Does anyone have any advice or tips that were successful during this initial period?

[Sandy]

We put our dog's crate in our room, after a very difficult first night. Not a sound from him since, and he's 13 months now! :) So it may not be ideal for everyone, but for us, we don't mind having his crate there, and it made him much less lonely, and much more secure.

[Julie Savolt]

Our puppy is now 11 weeks old so we just went through this. We have two crates, one in the kitchen and one in our bedroom. The crates are large so we put a cardboard box in the back to make it smaller, and a dog bed in the front. If the crate is to big they may defecate in it. We put a chew toy in his crate when he's in there. Our puppy adjusted just fine to his crate. He actually likes it and will sleep in there during the day with the door open. At night if he cried a bit we just said "night, night" and he would stop. Barley does like the TV or music on when he sleeps. He was only up at night (one time) for two nights and has slept through since then. I hope yours will be as easy as ours.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Also have our crate in the bedroom. Works well for our puppy (now six months). He's quiet and content, and we get to sleep later because when he wakes up he's fine for awhile as long as he can see us. He's sleeping 9 hours now.

[Lori]

Our puppy slept in my room for the first couple of nites, then we moved the whole show out to the living room/kitchen area. He had a snuggle puppy and we left that at the breeder's the day before so it also got mom's scent all over it, along with a blanket that they gave us. We have two other dogs who have the run of the house at all times....but Leo never once cried at night. It's been almost two weeks. He's woken me up a couple of times to go out, or even I'll wake up so I take him out just to ensure that it's on my terms on not his when I'm all cozy and asleep! The snuggle puppy is great - the battery ran down a couple of day ago and I haven't bothered to replace it....it got him over the hump. He does like sleeping with it and snuggles with it. Good luck. My guess is you probably don't need to sleep next to him. If he's really tired, he's just going to fall asleep anyway. It's the waking up part that might get to you!

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

We had Peri in our room for the first week. Then we figured out that she would make noise to get our attention and moved her to the hall. One week after that we moved her crate stayed to the office, which is the room next to our bedroom. She sleeps better away from us, but maybe that is just our case. Peri is about 5 1/2 months now and I am counting the days until I feel comfortable enough to let her sleep on her bed (no crate) in our room.
My best tip for you is to buy a $25 sound machine from Target or Walmart. We still use ours for Peri. It stays above her kennel and we keep it on "white noise" at night and either "ocean waves" or "summertime" during the day if we are gone. She loves the noise. It seems to soothe her. She has slept through the night since 3 months.

[Lynne B]

We put Beck's crate next to our bed and never had an issue, for the first few nights he would wake up to potty once, we would take him out, put him back in his crate and he would go right back to sleep. If possible I would put the crate in your bedroom, it sounds like an awful inconvenience to have you or your husband sleep in another room..

[Amy K.]

It sounds like the consensus is that the crate should be in your bedroom at least initially. Now, it's just convincing my husband of that!

I've also heard about the idea to leave some kind of music on for them during the day. A white noise machine at night makes sense too.

Thanks for all of the great advice!

Any other tips?

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Also..put a blanket over it at night. That helps a lot also. And a funny thing about the snuggle puppy...we never thought Peri liked hers...until we forgot to put it back in her crate one night. She was crying (which she doesn't normally do). I noticed we had taken the snuggle pup out, so I put it in, she sighed, and went to sleep. HA! This was abotu a month ago when she was 4 1/2 months old! So funny...

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

Hunter slept through the night after about 2 weeks and we only had to take her out once during the night. She has never had an accident in her crate either. She would only whimpered when we first put her in her crate for about 5 minutes at the most. She still gets vocal sometimes when we put her in if she isn't ready :-) And she STILL sleeps with the little toy that Wendi sent her home with ~ we call it her "baby" and she uses it like a pillow.

[Maryann,Roo and Tigger]

Sound to me like you are ready and have gotten lots of good advice. Guess I'll add a little more.

I have never kept my puppies in the bedroom, so it's not a deal breaker. Also I really think it works much much better to get the puppy up (set your alarm), than to even once let the puppy get you up. Pick up Oscar's water around 8 pm. Put him to bed as close to your bedtime as possible, but he must have gone pee right before he goes in his cage. Try three hour intervals at first. Increase time by 1/2 hour every few days as long as there are no cage accidents. Most dogs can easily go 6-8 hours at night by twelve weeks.

Right from the get go when Oscar pee's as he starts to pee ( not before) say " go pee" or some other cue. You will be astonished at how quickly Oscar learns to pee on command. Take him on a lead to the exact same place you want him to pee everytime and say nothing. He should be bored! he can sniff around the length of the leash only. Then when he pees speak your cue word. When he is finished have a party! Good dog in a happy voice, lots of attention, etc ( no treats - can be confusing) for 15 -30 seconds. Then back inside. This is very useful for night time pees and cars trips etc.

[Amy K.]

I really hope Oscar does as well as you've described. One follow-up question - why no treats for going potty? Have you used treats before and it's caused confusion over what you're treating him for?

[Annie OG]

Similar story with Rico. The night time thing was my biggest worry and it turned out to be no big deal. Like the others, I feed him about 5pm, then take the water away about 8pm. Take him out to pee at 10 pm when we go to bed, put his crate on my side of the bed when we go to bed, say night night, turn the lights out and he is out. He only woke us up one night, I took him out (don't talk to him or cuddle, just out to pee and right back in), he whined a tiny bit, I said "hush" and he went right to sleep. He is 14 weeks old and since we got him at 8 weeks he has slept until at least 6am each morning. Some mornings I have to wake him up! He also goes into his kennel when we have to go out, I turn on the tv, give him the Kong filled with something yummy and say bye and he is always asleep when I get back. These dogs really are incredible compared to other breeds we have had!