How to sleep while raising a puppy?
April 8, 2017 11:08 AM   Subscribe

Any ideas for making it through the next few months? Especially this month when we have to keep him at home?

We have adorable 10 wk old golden retriever Robbie, so cute loving, learning fast and doing pretty good in crate at night. Right now he naps on and off taking long nap in evening and down for night around 11 and sleeps to 4 or 5. Up for day 5-6am.

Problem is we are both light sleepers me so bad I had to go to guest room and I now take over a lot during day so hubby can nap.

We are both in 60's retired so not working. I wanted dog to hike and go on beach with. We waited to get dog so it wouldn't be home alone while we worked.

I knew it would be hard, but I don't think we counted on what the lack of sleep would do to us. We are both night people and dogs are up with the sun even after puppy time!
posted by oceanlady to Pets & Animals (14 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Basically, this is the same as having a newborn child. If you google "newborn sleep deprivation," you'll get great ideas. The first four links that came up for me would all be relevant/helpful for you.
posted by whitewall at 11:53 AM on April 8, 2017


Is the puppy's crate in a room that gets a lot of natural light? Maybe curtains or shades would delay his wake time.
posted by bunderful at 12:06 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


Pup will stay stiller and quieter on your bed if you are in it whether it is night or a daytime nap. 10 weeks is not a great time to take it away from it's mom and siblings. You've some parenting to do here. It will be worth it.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:10 PM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: One of us is always with him. Right now hubby is doing nights since little noises wake me up.

We keep blankets over sides and back of crate so day or night its dark. He has fav toy. I think he is sleeping the right amount for his age its just us!

I will look up newborn sleep ideas thanks, its bringing me back over 30 yrs ago when both my daughter and I sometimes would cry together in middle of night because we were overtired.

Just a bit harder at 60 instead of mid 20's!
posted by oceanlady at 12:16 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]


If it's just the puppy noises waking you up and not necessarily that the pup needs attention, maybe a light sleep aid like melatonin, for you?
posted by sixfootaxolotl at 12:24 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


We did the same, older retired couple with new puppy. First, I would make a habit of a late evening walk in order to tire him out. I also took up water a few hours before bed to keep that little bladder alarm from going off so early. Ours was a street rescue at 6 weeks and I set an alarm for every three hours to wake her up and go outside. She always went back to sleep, and I just extended the time by half an hour every week or so. She took to that just fine, and eventually we were sleeping through the night AND she was perfectly potty trained.(I also set a timer during the day and took her out every 15 minutes that first week, gradually adding minutes when she didn't go potty right away when we went out. Worked like a charm. Of course we brought treats out every single time.) And sure, sometimes she came back to our bed instead of the crate and she DID sleep longer.

It was REALLY hard for the first month or so, but I think we adjusted better because WE were controlling the schedule. We are also light sleepers, but we knew sacrifices had to be made in the beginning. Also, the worst was the night it was pouring rain in February and I knew I had to teach her that rain didn't stop the process. Had to coax her out at 2 am while huddling under a hooded rain jacket because she was afraid of umbrellas, but now it's three years later and she's just the perfect dog for us. I truly think she adapted better because she was operating on our schedule, not the other way around. With the caveat that our schedule was in reality molded around her schedule.
posted by raisingsand at 12:32 PM on April 8, 2017 [6 favorites]


First, remember that this will not last long. I brought my dog home when he was 10 weeks old, and within a week or so, he was sleeping through most nights. And then the only times he would wake me up in the middle of the night were days he hadn't gotten enough exercise and wanted to play. A few things that helped:

- Definitely take him for a walk right before bed so he can go longer before he has to pee. Even a quick spin around the block helps.

- Like with your daughter when she was little, wear him out. Socialization is the best way to do this, either with people or other dogs. If he's not old enough to go to the dog park yet, maybe you can do a play date with another friend who has a dog, or take him to puppy playtime if there's a place nearby that offers it. Inviting people over in the evenings also helps.

- Set the schedule yourself as much as you can. One thing I did with my dog when he was a puppy was that, once he started sleeping through the night, I did not take him out to pee or give him breakfast until I'd been awake for about an hour. This way he didn't associate me waking up with eating or going out, and didn't learn to wake me up for either. Now he's a an adult dog and never wakes me up in the morning. Really!

- Experiment with moving his crate into another room. This may or may not work. Most puppies would prefer to be in your room, but some will be fine in another room.

Good luck! I swear, every new dog owner, especially with puppies, goes through this. It will get better, and very soon.
posted by lunasol at 3:57 PM on April 8, 2017 [5 favorites]


Response by poster: Thanks everyone, had to laugh at rain because we live on northern ca coast almost to oregon and have had almost 5 months of non stop pouring rain! First night we had our 8 wk guy it was that way, have had 3 to 1 more rain since he came.

Thankfully he loves the water can't wait until we can take him on beach.

Can't take out in public until his shots done second week in May, parvo.

But we do have good size backyard, neighbors kids and us run him around, i am working on training him to leash. He starts puppy class in a few weeks, he can go to that after second shot because everyone there has to prove they are vaccinated.

I play with him constantly and on super rainy days we run around in the house, learning to fetch so runs after things. Believe me I try to tire him as much as possible in the evenings.
posted by oceanlady at 4:44 PM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]


Just want to second that this will pass soon, probably before he is a year old. Sometimes I'm even a little nostalgic for those dawn walks with my dog. At this point (he is four today), he is very interested in breakfast at 7 AM, but not at all in going out before 9 or even 10.

My dog is a very bouncy, active German Shepherd/Border Collie mix, and still he sleeps and rests something like 16 hours a day, maybe even more. Maybe you don't need to play as much as you think - rather think about helping him to calm down and relax when he needs it.
posted by mumimor at 5:43 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]


We have a very active 18 month old Golden Retriever who is the apple of my eye. However the time between when she arrived at 8 weeks old and when she had vaccinations enough to take out into the world were some of the most difficult weeks of my life. I very much feel for you. You sound way more prepared for this than we were by the way.

When we finally got her to puppy school we were both near delirious​ from lack of sleep. The vet nurse took one look at us and told us that for the love of God we needed to put her in the bathroom or laundry or wherever was safe and get a decent night's sleep. The puppy will be fine, poop can be cleaned up but we were going to kill each other if we went another night the way we were going.

This might be contraversial advice but is there anywhere safe you can put the crate where he can whine out of earshot so you can sleep, even just for one night? The puppy will honestly be just fine as long as there is nothing he can injure himself on.

It gets so much easier once you can take them out it is like magic. Half an hour of interaction with other puppies would wear my girl out more than hours and hours of playtime with me would.

To be honest we did spend about a year getting up with the sun (which was so not normal for us) in order to get her fed and exercised before we had to go deal with the world. This has slowly been pushed back to a more civilized hour but would have been way more painless if we had commited to not feeding her until we had already been up for a bit.

Tldr: I was ready to send my Golden back at 10 weeks but now think she is the best thing to ever happen to us. She is an awesome dog who trained well and now comes on hours long walks with us. This will be done sooner than you think. Feel free to mefi-mail me if you want more specific commiseration.

Also, I don't know how anyone can possibly answer correctly without photos for reference ;)
posted by arha at 1:02 AM on April 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Edit: Mr arha wants to clarify that we had been doing shift sleeping next to the crate in the spare room (but she was loud enough to wake me up in our bedroom next door, no-one slept well). Having someone there next to her just seemed to encourage the YAY PLAYTIME at all hours in her. Mr arha claims he would have been fine to continue with this routine but he is full of shit and has a bad memory.

She took exactly one night to adjust to not having us there next to her. We were then able to slowly transition her to sleeping on a mat at the end of our bed, where's she now snoozes for about 12 hours a night.
posted by arha at 1:27 AM on April 9, 2017


I just feel the need to chime in and say that there is nothing wrong with bringing home a pup at 8-10 weeks. You didn't do anything wrong here, OP. If you're curious about puppy development, this timeline might interest you. It's very important that pups stay with their mother and littermates through the canine socialization period (roughly 21-49 days) and the early parts of the human socialization period (7-12 weeks).

Don't let anyone here or elsewhere shame you for bringing home a 10-week-old dog.
posted by schroedingersgirl at 6:55 AM on April 9, 2017


Agree, ten weeks is fine. Lots of good advice here - also you could try finding someone else local who has a puppy of a similar age and arrange play dates in your garden. Obviously have a quick chat to make sure they are on the same page as you regarding safety with parvo etc. Socialisation with other puppies is great for tiring them out, and our dog is still good friends with the puppies she played with at that time, it was fun for everyone!
The puppy class organiser may well be able to put you in touch with other people, or try your vet, or local online groups.
posted by tardigrade at 10:43 AM on April 9, 2017


Response by poster: We brought him home at 8 weeks because that was what breeder wanted, I actually asked if he could stay longer but she had plans to take her dogs camping after pups left. She is a good breeder and he seemed ready to go, bonded with us and never once cried for his mom or other mates. He loves us, we adore him!

So update, last night was better, I upgraded to Pandora Plus and hubby put him down for night at 11:30pm he sleeps off and on after 7pm but long sleep after 11. He slept until 6 today all night with hubby putting his phone on classical Pandora music on top of crate on low. Worked like a charm.

I slept 8 hrs in guest room, hubby got at least 6 and we took him out for a walk on trail for first time in a large canvas bag my hubby carried him since he can't go down yet. He loved the smells of the ocean (we are 1/2 mile from trail overlooking ocean) and we were able to let him meet people on trail and even saw one dog. It was so cute just his head was out smelling all around.
posted by oceanlady at 2:48 PM on April 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


« Older Surround Sound for Dummy (mostly music listening)   |   Another ID This Plant Question Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.