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Raisin Won't Sleep Through the Night

Posted March 2nd, 2010 by nburik
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Hi Aidan:

You helped me and Raisin last summer when I was having a difficult time walking her. Now I'm back with a different problem!

Raisin is now 10 months old. To date, she has never slept through the night. My husband and I go to sleep around 9:30-10:00pm. Raisin sleeps in her bed, in our room, and there is a baby gate up the prohibits access to the rest of the house.

She will fall asleep just fine. Every night she's up between 3:00-4:30am. She will start licking, chewing pacing, crawling under the bed, you name it. My husband will get up to take her out. She will always urinate, sometimes defecate, but not always. If we try to go directly back to bed, she continues to stir for the rest of the night. If I feed her after my husband brings her back, she'll sleep in until about 5:30, but I'm sure this isn't the ideal feeding schedule.

She gets LOTS of exercise. 2 1-hour walks a day or a full day at day care or a walk combined with an hour at the dog park. I don't know if this is normal and something she'll eventually grow out of or maybe we're doing something wrong here. Any suggestions would be appreciated. We haven't had a full-night's sleep in 8 months!

Thanks,
Nicole

Comments

re: Raisin Won't Sleep Through the Night

Aidan's picture
On March 2nd, 2010 Aidan says:

Hi Nicole, it's good to hear from you.

This is learned behaviour, that is all. A habit. Get yourself a correctly sized crate, introduce her to it as per the Training Levels (http://www.dragonflyllama.com) and, if you must, put it outside your bedroom so that you can shut the door. She will eventually get bored and go back to sleep. Expect a few mornings from hell though.

If you really have problems, set your alarm for 2:00am and get up and take her to the toilet. Then put her back to bed, no fussing or playing. Each night, add 5 minutes to the wake up time. You are teaching her to sleep until she is WOKEN by you.

Regards,
Aidan
http://www.positivepetzine.com

Thanks, Aidan!

On March 6th, 2010 nburik says:

I wanted to give you a quick Raisin update.

First off, I was afraid you were going to suggest the crate. We actually did crate train Raisin starting at 2 months. One day, at about 6 months, she totally refused to enter her crate. I have no idea why, but even the most tasty treat, bone, hot dog, Kong wouldn't get her to put more than her front 2 paws into the crate. Her crate is the appropriate size, and she's always used the same one, but one day she was over it. So we gave up on the crate and switched to her dog bed, where she's been ever since.

So, getting Raisin into the crate will be a separate project and we'll go back to working on it. What we ended up doing was taking her x-pen, where she stays during the day, and folding it down to a rectangle, slightly larger than the dimensions of her crate, but just large enough to accommodate her bed snugly and for us to be able to open and close the door. She goes in when we go to sleep and we close the door. The first night she whined for a bit when we put her in and a bit again around 4:30am. The second night nothing when we put her in and a bit of whining around 5am. Last night, nothing at all. Our alarm went off at 5:30am and we found her awake, but sitting in her x-pen quietly.

Every night when my husband goes to use the restroom, he'll take Raisin out for a potty, but on his clock not hers. Our next hurdle will be to get through the night without any potty breaks, something we've never tried, but something we think she could be able to do at 10 months.

My husband told me this morning "This is really working!" so we're grateful to be getting back on the road to a full night's sleep. I hope our modification of using the x-pen is appropriate. It seems to be working and we're relieved to be getting sleep again.

Thanks, Aidan!!

The ex-pen is a great idea.

Aidan's picture
On March 6th, 2010 Aidan says:

The ex-pen is a great idea. She sounds like a great dog! Very easy going to have her routine changed with hardly a word of complaint.

Regards,
Aidan
http://www.positivepetzine.com

Raisin won't sleep through the night

Ginchen's picture
On March 3rd, 2010 Ginchen says:

When I read "licking and chewing" I wondered whether Raisin has an allergy?
Gina has atopic dermatitis (it is managed), and it just sounds like her before we were able to manage it. She used to wake up at 3 or 4 am and started licking, chewing her paw until she was raw and had bald patches! She crawled under the bed, shot in and out of the room, and now I know it was because she suffered so much. People made remarks about my tired eyes, as I hadn't been able to sleep for months. Maybe you could ask a vet? Could be a minor medical thing?

I wish you all the best, hope that Raisin has no atopic dermatitis, that it's something minor and solvable, and especially some good night sleeps!

Thanks for the input,

On March 3rd, 2010 nburik says:

Thanks for the input, Ginchen.

Allergies are something we've already ruled out. Raisin has always been an itchy puppy. I was really concerned when she was 2-3 months old. Although she did have a mild case of mange back then, she's been cleared of any other skin ailment. I've actually put her on Omega 3 supplements and that has helped out tremendously. She itches and scratches at night, but I believe it's boredom because that's the only time it happens, and it's never to the point of bleeding, rawness or bald patches.

I think Aidan's feedback is right. Raisin's learned to get up in the middle of the night and then has her routine: itches, crawls under the bed, walks around and then starts tapping the bed like "Hey you two, time to get up!". I'll post a follow-up soon as we try to manage this behavior better. But again, thanks for your concern :)

I don't think you can

On March 12th, 2010 Lexie P says:

I don't think you can control the fact that your Raisin is on the stage where she is exploring things and it does always happens whenever you use raisin into that system. If you try to put her in another room or either you can make a little house that you can out her in so that she will be busy. You can also try buying her some toys. Anyway, did you watch the Oscar Awards?It was the fifth time that Jeff Bridges has been nominated at the Oscars, and it's about darn time.

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