Night time pottying
 

Need advice - I am so tired its unbelievable!

(Toby is 11 weeks old)

We have Toby crated beside the bed so that when he needs to pee I can take him downstairs to the puppy pad.

He cries when he needs out, and the first night he held all night, and the second night it was a 4am pee trip.

Now (2 weeks on) it is 3 times from about 11pm to 6am. I have a puppy pad in the crate as well, and he will go on this if I dont hear him up, but then he still cries. So everytime he cries I take him downstairs, and he does a pee. Sometimes its only been a hour since the last time he went. I think it is an attention thing, and that he just wants out.

So I dont know if I should let him out for a pee everytime he cries, or whether that is making him cry more cos he knows he will get out. Then he cries when he is put back in again!

I am thinking of penning him in the kitchen now so we can get a bit of sleep! He knows to go on the pads when he is penned in.

Also at the weekend, we take him into bed from about 5am and he sleeps right through to about 12 noon, which makes me think even more that its for attention and not because he does actually need to go pee. But the thing is, if he actually is crying to get out to pee I dont want to ignore him.

May I ask why you wont let him sleep with you?? Or is it because he isn't quite potty trained yet. I always let mine sleep with me and she does great. If she gets cold, she will let me know she wants under the covers to snuggle, and if she gets too hott, she'll stick her head out, then her little body out. She never has an issue with going potty at night, and will sleep right through, although she's normally just as tired as I am. So maybe he is cold?? I'm not sure, but good luck with getting some sleep!

You need to either gate him with the pee pad or put him in a pen with the pee pad. The crates are for outdoor training

Yeah we want to wait until he is potty trained before we let him in. I also dont want him to expect it all the time. I want him to be able to sleep on his on if needs be.

Thanks

I will train him for outdoors but I need to wait until he has all his shots. At the minute he has the pee pad in the crate, so isnt this more or less the same as putting him in a pen with a pee pad, only less room? Pee pad at one end, bed at other?

I think he is basically crying to get out everytime he wakens, but he will pee each time if I set him on the pad.

Oh yea it is the same. I didnt read you had a pee pad inside the crate

does his crate have alot of room in it for him to move around. It just sounds like he is crying because hes c onfined

No he doesnt have room to move. There is his bed and there is a pad, and thats it. He doesnt cry when he does in at bedtime, its just during the night. Not like Millie - she would've cried and scraped to get out. Crating her didnt work at all.

Do you think a pen would be better? I have no objection to this at all, and its what we did with Millie, but theres no room in the bedroom for it, so he would have to stay downstairs, which I am sure he will cause a fuss about too! :rolleyes:

To be honest, I think he just wants into our bed, so my problem is how, do I distinguish between pee time, and wanting out of the crate and into our bed?

If I take him out of the bedroom it might solve the problem. Once he is potty trained and able to get up and down the stairs he can come in our bed.

Millie would've stayed downstairs for a while when we went to bed, she then came up in the middle of the night, and downstairs again to pee as she need.

coral did the same exact thing. it went from 1 time a night to 3, because she realized it got her out and she would get to sleep in the bed from about 4 or 5 on. now i have a pad and her bed in the crate and i will not let her out until my alarm goes off, no matter how much she cries, which is less and later as time goes on. then, at 6 a.m. when my alarm goes off, i take her right outside and she goes. i wake up at that time on the weekends now also (just to let her out) and then she sleeps with me until i am ready to get up.

He will get the idea before long. It does take some time though and he is still very young. He probably is not mature enough yet. With JoJo, it was like turning a light switch on/off. Prior to that, I joked about him having to get up before we even went to bed. He would cry several times a night. He will be a year old in a couple of weeks and he usually goes to the pad one time during the night. Hopefully, you will see improvement within the next two months.