# Puppy won't lay back down in Morning. Help!



## theglocks (May 27, 2013)

Our puppy, bandit, has been making some great progress since we got him a week and a half ago. one of the problems that is really taking a toll, however, is his early morning "fit". my husband works late, and so we generally go to sleep around 12 or 1 and would like to wake up around 9 or 10. bandit sleeps in his crate in our bedroom where we can see and hear him. he has a soft space to lay on, has a stuffed animal and a bone, and has a cover over the cage to encourage him to sleep. he understands that it's bedtime, and goes right to sleep within minutes. 

The problem comes in the morning. he generally makes it to around 7, and then whines to go out to use the bathroom. one of us takes him, and comes straight back up and put him back in his crate and we lay back down. within minutes he is whining, barking, and literally howling in his crate, and refuses to lay back down. 

we have tried covering his crate back up, leaving it open so he can see us, ignoring him (we made it 20 minutes before we couldn't take it anymore), and he has toys to chew on in there but completely ignores them. he doesn't calm down until one of us puts him in his playpen and feeds, waters, and gives attention to him. 

we are literally losing sleep over this issue, and need somebody's help. we don't mind taking him potty, but when we come back up he needs to lay back down or at least quietly play with his toys or chew on his bone until we're ready to wake up. what could/should we do? we're getting a little tired and desperate.


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## WonderBreadDots (Jun 26, 2012)

One of you could stay up with puppy after the first a.m. potty break. Puppy is just a baby and curious...and active. I go to bed at the same time as you and my puppies could only manage until 5:00 a.m. max. This doesn't last the rest of the dogs life, his sleep schedule will be changing every few weeks until he at least reaches his teenage years, then even as an adult he may have days or weeks where he will want or need to go out in the middle of the night. 

Sometimes when you are in the middle of puppyhood you might think (insert typical puppy growing pain here) is going to last forever, but in reality it only lasts a few days or weeks. 

Breath deeply, take a nap, this will soon pass and puppy will be sleeping until 9.


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## ShelterPups (Jan 3, 2013)

How old is your puppy? Do you provide water and or food for him in his crate? Sounds like he is hungry, thirsty or just plain tired of being in the crate. My newest puppy is a Miniature Schnauzer who was 3 months old when we brought him home. He sleeps in our bed along with my Italian Greyhound, king size bed.Around 5 AM he is hungry and there is no way to convince him that 5 AM is to early to wake up.Hubby usually feeds him then he is in play mode. I have 5 dogs and know from experience that my puppy will outgrow his early morning routine when he gets older.

May I ask if you have children? Puppies "baby puppies" Keep this in mind.


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## theglocks (May 27, 2013)

our puppy is 12 weeks old now, and is a boxer/dachshund mix. we are newlyweds, so no kids yet! we do have a cat but she stays away from the puppy for the most part and isn't an issue. we don't give him food or water overnight because then he would be peeing and pooping everywhere and that would be no fun at all!


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## Kyllobernese (Feb 5, 2008)

I got Kris, my Doberman pup, when she was 11 weeks old. She slept in her crate beside the bed so I could hear her start to move her around and take her outside. Once she started to sleep through the night, she would start fussing around 5 am in the morning. I would let her out and usually ended up staying up even though she would go back to sleep on her bed in the kitchen as don't trust her yet to just leave her and go back to bed. If I put her back in the crate she would fuss too much.

She outgrew her crate so I moved her into a bigger crate in my laundry room and she is sleeping a little later every morning. She is just over five months now and I am starting to be able to sleep till about seven now. It does not seem to matter how late I am up at night so I think a lot of it has to do with it getting light outside. It does get better so hang in there.


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## Hambonez (Mar 17, 2012)

What if you got up in the middle of the night and took him out then and went back to sleep? Without his bladder alarm in the morning, and coming back to a dark quiet bedroom, might be a better combination to get more rest. If not - what about putting his breakfast in a kong and freezing it and giving it to him in his crate when you get back to bed in the morning? A well made frozen kong can keep my dog busy for over an hour... then he's usually ready for a nap.  

Do you have any pics? Our Hamilton is a dachshund mix... though we don't know with what. I'm curious about a doxie-boxie.


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## BasenjiMomma (Feb 4, 2013)

That actually sounds like a decent night to me! 

My puppy is about 4 months old, and he wakes up about 7 along wiht the kids, and we also go to bed around midnight


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## theglocks (May 27, 2013)

i guess we are used to actually being able to get over 6 ish hours of sleep...my husband is a wuss and can't take it so i have to be the one to wake up and sleep with him while the hubby gets to sleep until 11...if this is normal and not a behavior issue then i guess i will just have to deal. it is just crazy how quickly the whining escalates into full-out howling and screaming. 
here is a picture of him...he is a goofy looking boy. right now at about 10lbs, but not sure how big he is gonna get! my guess is 40lbs


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## Darkmoon (Mar 12, 2007)

Honestly at 12 weeks, I wouldn't be letting my puppy tell me when it has to go potty. When I brought home Peanut at 14 weeks, I would go to bed at midnight, get up at 4am and take her out, then again at 7am until she was about 18 weeks old. Then she was making it from 11pm to 7am without issues. I still was getting up at 7am to let her out though. When your puppy is waking you up, he's wide awake and ready to play. Waking him up means he's tired and will more likely want to go back to sleep.


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## Hambonez (Mar 17, 2012)

He's very cute!! I don't think he looks very boxery! Ours was about 7 lbs at 12 wks, and 9ish lbs at 14 wks, and has topped out at just under 20 lbs (and 8 inches tall. haha).


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## Smook&Boo (Jun 2, 2013)

My girl LilyBoo is 18wks and from 7wks to 15wks I was doing early morning get up-pee-feed-water-poop cycle. Actually, we still do it...but I've moved her feed times around so that she sleeps a bit longer. I have a 4yo child and she gets up at 7ish, so I was aiming to have us all get up at the same time. It was tiring and sucked but now I can get up with Lily and send her out to do her business while I prepare her meal (she's fed a RAW diet), feed her and then crate her again until the humans are ready to get up for the day. I was feeding her at 6-12-6...but have moved it to 7-2-8 (with the 8pm meal being an ounce or so bigger to hold her longer overnight). I did some quiet play in the morning....trick training with treats to increase the time before she was fed her meal. It seems to have worked for us...but if I learned anything from going through baby days with my kiddo, it's that 'this too shall pass'.  HTH


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## PatriciafromCO (Oct 7, 2012)

hes adorable... It's been different for different pups, kinda go with the flow of trying to make every situation a learning one as we go along.. You might want to practice wait time in the crate during the day so you can use it in the morning. Arka was one that when he stirred in his crate I would get up and take him out and he did have to go. In the beginning coming back to the crate was fine for him to fall back to sleep. As he got older there was a little bit of faking it going on lol ... but pawing at the crate is not the way to be let out, so I give him the wait or down and the second he did I would open the door. that is the way the door opens.. and expanded the time from a second to a little longer and longer.. on the wait. so it's ok to let me know you want out but sometimes we have to wait until I can get to it..  I know my adult dogs will not have to crate over night. There is an older puppy age that I'll get up take them out to potty, but will not ask them to go back into the crate. And they fall back to sleep on the floor just fine. The better behaved they are the more I feel comfortable progressing in not putting them back in the crate if they wake me at 3am and I get up at 515am... kinda go with the flow an inch at a time and see how we do... He is cute !!!


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## samshine (Mar 11, 2011)

There is no sleeping in with puppies! If you are lucky, you might get to have a nap after getting up, feeding, and playing for a while. 

Once your pup is older, the alarm clock method is a good way to have your pup wake up when you do, not when they want to. (assuming they are older and don't NEED to go outside.) The key is to always set the alarm clock and never get up until the alarm goes off. This means laying in bed and toughing it out if your dog starts fussing. Which you obviously can't do unless you are sure they don't need to go out. Then when they are older, you can gradually set the alarm clock a bit later on the weekends. The idea is for the dog to believe that only alarms can wake up sleeping humans.


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