I have a Labradoodle puppy who is nearly 5 months old. I have been crate training him since I bought him home (just after 8 weeks) and generally he has been doing really well.
As the title says, he has been doing really well at night (touch wood! I'm scared to jinx it!) Since night 3, he has been sleeping through the night from around 10pm until roughly 7 to 8am – there have just been a handful of nights where he's barked and/or needed a pee in the middle of the night.
However, in the day it's a bit different. It's clear that he tolerates his crate; he doesn't hate it but doesn't love it. Usually when I put him in there, he won't cry or bark initially, but he will only nap in there for about 45 minutes to an hour and then he will bark to get out. He does sometimes go in there independently but usually I have to put him in there for nap time.
Recently, when I put him into his crate during the day he will go in absolutely fine, but after about 10-15 minutes he starts barking. Most times he has just been to the toilet, just had water, and just had a walk / played / had an enrichment activity so I know he's tired. Still, I will take him out to see if he needs the bathroom, and usually he doesn't go. I then put him back in his crate and again he usually goes in fine but will start barking about 10-15 minutes later.
Also just to add, I go to work during the day and he goes to doggy daycare (and for reasons I won't go into here, he's currently going to a handful of different people at the moment.) I give the people his crate and do ask them to please try to encourage him to nap in his crate, but of course it's up to them if they do this with him and I will never really know what they do or don't do. So it's hard to be fully consistent with him with crate training during the day, as I'm not the only person looking after him.
So my question is, would it be really bad if I stopped crating him for his naps during the day? He naps really well in the day either in his playpen or on my sofa, so he's still getting lots of rest. My only concern is that it would get him out of the routine of sleeping in his crate, and then he wouldn't sleep in it at night (I do need him to still sleep in it at night, as I often go to visit my mum and my dad and he sleeps in his crate when I go to both their houses.) Part of the reason I think this might happen, is because there was one day last week where he didn't have any naps in his crate during the day and he had a really bad time in his crate at night (which might have just been a coincedence, I'm not sure!) but it makes me worried.
TL;DR:
My puppy sleeps well in his crate at night but sometimes barks during daytime crate naps, even when tired. He naps well outside the crate. Since daytime consistency is hard (different carers), would stopping daytime crate naps affect his good nighttime crate routine?
submitted by /u/Retro_Caterpillar648
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