Monday, November 19, 2012

Sleep training (for us or her?)

Day one went great...last night...slightly less great.  We had a great snuggle, tried to tire her out a little bit, gave her a small bit of food and got her all situated for the night.  We could hear her whining and crying once we got up to bed...it was awful, we both wanted to go down and snuggle her (or bring her into bed with us) but we held off and she fell asleep after about 30 mins of crying.  She woke back up around 3:30 and was crying and barking so I went downstairs and let her out.  It was completely heartwarming to see how happy she was to see me, but after a quick pee outside she started whining and crying again when I went to go back upstairs....As frustrating as that sound is at an ungodly hour of the morning...who can be mad at this?

[caption id="attachment_1085" align="aligncenter" width="388"] oh hey...this is my belly...feel free to rub it even though you are technically still asleep....was that my pee you just stepped in?![/caption]

I totally caved because I was dying to go back to sleep, so I wrapped her up in her special blanket and we had a snooze on the couch til my alarm went off.  Although we wont be having her sleep in our bed with us, I can see why some people do, what a lovely warm little snuggle puppy she is!  We have our first training class tonight and hopefully they can offer some more tricks on how to help us (or her) sleep through the night.  Suggestions so far are: ticking clock and a hot water bottle.  It is funny because I miss her SO much today just being at work.  I am counting down until 430 so I can scoot out of her and go see my little babes.  I am so happy that Garret works closer to home so he can get home sooner to see her.  I sense that we are going to be mega dorks re this lil lady. Did I mention we already have clothes for her?

1 comment:

Jeanette @ This Dusty House said...

Puppy! SO ADORABLE!

When we first got Mocha (who is now 2), sleep was a HUGE issue. She did NOT want to sleep in her crate. Eventually, we broke down and ditched the whole crate training thing, which meant we spent a YEAR cleaning up accidents in our apartment. Not pretty. We learned our lesson. Now, all grown up, she's an amazing sleeper. She does sleep with us and we love it. (Such snuggles! Makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning.) Kingsley on the other hand, is going to be way bigger, so we were insistent that he keep his feet and his sleeping self on the floor. Somehow, we managed to convince him to love his crate. We set him into a solid routine right away, not expecting that he would sleep through the night. We set our alarm clock for 2:30 and got him up - even woke him up if we had to - to take him outside to go pee. Also, if he woke up and whimpered before that - or after! - we would immediately do the same thing - take him out, let him pee, then put him right back in the crate. A quick pee and then right back in the crate. For the first few nights, he whimpered, but he caught onto the routine pretty quickly and we had no issues. Now, he's 5 months old and sleeps through the night like a champ. Occasionally, we still have issues, generally related to how much we let him sleep during the day, and he is most definitely an early riser, but it's been a far more positive experience than it was with Mocha!

Also, I don't think it is possible to love a puppy too much. :D