Hey all – I have a now 5 month old puppy Maltipoo and things have certainly gotten better since month 1, but waking up constantly, biting and barking are still a challenge.
On the topic of waking up constantly, our pup has an internal wake up clock (which I'm sure most do) and I'm looking to understand how we can break the cycle. When I mean waking up, she will wake up and whine endlessly until there is interaction. And I mean whine endlessly? She will whine for 20 mins straight until she gets that interaction. If she settled on her own, I wouldn't be here
For context, our pup will get up at 5am, 6am, 7am, and 8am almost religiously every day. Been this way for a while now. What we've been doing is that when she wakes up, we take her downstairs to pee or see if she needs a drink/food, then will take her back upstairs. Only once during the 5/6/7/8 cycle does she actually need to pee (rarely, if ever poops and rarely, almost never, wants to eat and drink before 9am)
We spoke to our trainer about this topic and he gave tips, but I'm not sure the tips are working:
– Tip 1: remove water and food by 8pm each night to have less liquid/food in her system so she doesn't need to get up as much during the night –> since implementing this two weeks ago, the various wake up times haven't changed
– Tip 2: when she gets up and whines during the night, we were told to pick her up, NOT take her downstairs, give her love for max 1-2 mins (it's not time to play, it's just long enough to acknowledge we're there) then put her back down and let her settle (she has a pee-pad in her play pen for use now). The context was that if we pick her up and only tend to her for a minute, she will realize over time there's nothing exciting happening at these times and it's not time to start the day –> since implementing this, we have been able to get her to settle faster by giving her some light attention and putting her back down, BUT she's still waking up constantly so I'm not sure it's having the intended consequences
Now – for some really important context –> once we finally give in (usually around 8am, sometimes 7am) I will go downstairs to work on the couch while my partner continues to get some more sleep. Our pup will then cuddle up with me on the couch (almost immediately) and sleep on me for an easy 2-3 hours more. So I can tell she's still tired, it's just clear she's fed up about being alone in the pen.
Could really use some help because she does like to sleep during the night, but she likes to constantly wake up and won't stop until we give into her attention.
submitted by /u/Jay519
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