early morning crate whining

[ElizabethHaynes]

Hello!

Our new puppy is here! Two nights in we have been lucky. Generally- she is doing very well with crating. She goes in easily at bedtime, whimpers for a few minutes and sleeps from about 11:30 to 5:30.  When she wakes up (and wakes us up) we try to wait for her to fall quiet before getting her out then quickly take her to the bathroom keeping lights off and praise brief. After coming back inside, she does NOT want to go back in her crate and puts up a big scene. She is ready to play!  I know it will take some time but we want to gradually work towards a final wake time of 6:30 or 7.   I have no problem at all taking her out in the night... but can we teach her that we sleep again afterwards?? I want to make sure we do not create negative feelings about the crate while we are still working on making positive associations. 

 

This morning- I let her fuss for about 5 mins but she seemed to be escalating. I waited for a period of quiet and then went and laid on the floor by her crate in hopes that having a human near would be enough for her to settle (and not wake my toddler). She stopped crying but continued to be wide awake and staring at me for 30 minutes. I decided to go ahead and let her eat and play. Breeder tells me that 5:30 was wake up time in his home.  She is 7.5 weeks- came home a bit earlier than expected due to her breeder falling ill. 

 

Thanks!

[Adrienne]

Hi there,

Welcome to the forums! And congrats on your new pup!

I can understand your concerns as they are very valid. We work hard to make the crate a great place to be and then we are worried about any negative repercussions that may come when our pups are active and awake and eager to embrace the day and the last place they may want to be is in the crate.

 

So how can we tackle this issue? We have several options:

 

-Firstly, some good news. While many puppies are early risers, the good news is that as they mature and develop more, they will start sleeping longer also considering that they will gain the ability to hold it longer. So as each week goes by, you should start seeing some improvements. The first weeks are the toughest. 

 

-One thing we can try is to provide a high-value long-lasting chew (like a stuffed Kong) when putting her back in the crate. Have this ready from the night prior so all you have to do is give it once she returns from going potty. This may work to keep her busy for some time and hopefully get her back to feeling a bit tired after chewing. 

 

-Another option for those remaining morning hours, is putting her in an x-pen (lined with some pee pads if she has to potty) where she can hang out and play with some safe toys until it's time for you to get up. The disadvantage for this is that she may have an accident here, but it's better than creating negative associations with the crate and it's just a temporary adjustment. 

 

-Alternatively, we can get up at 5:30 initially and every day try to get up a little bit later every morning. I had to do this with some foster pups I had last year, and while it was annoying to get up so early, after about a week of gradually getting them to get up a little later each time we were able to eventually let them sleep up to 7. This worked because, as mentioned, the puppies were also developing more so they were able to sleep longer since they didn't wake up early with a need to potty. So this is most cases is just a temporary thing.