Well I knew I'd be back to ask more questions now that our new puppy has come home. We are new at this and came to this forum a few weeks before we got her to search out the things we needed to buy and how to help transition the puppy to our home. She's adorable as can be but at night we are having a problem. I understand that she's a puppy and will take some time to get used to sleeping in the crate, but it seems that with each night, the crying is getting worse, rather than better. The crate is in the kitchen/family room and we put her in there around 9:30/10 p.m. and retire to our bedrooms on the upper floor. We've tried leaving on a radio, a fan, a ticking clock and we have divided her crate so that it is fairly small, she's not even 10 lbs. yet. We take her out for the last time at night around 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. As soon as we shut off the tv, lights, etc. and go upstairs she begins the crying, sometimes it's just a few minutes and then she's asleep, but wakes up around 2 hours later. I let her cry a little more. She fell back to sleep and woke again about an hour later. I took her outside and she did pee. I immediately took her back in and placed back in the crate. Went upstairs and she began crying again which lasted for quite a while, 1/2 hour or so. She feel asleep for just another hour and woke up again. I figured we would just let her cry but by 4:00 a.m. my whole cranky family was up and my husband went and let her out again. By this time she had pooped and peed in the crate. Please give us some advice to help get through this challenging time. I'm very patient, but the whole family is not so when it comes to sleep time
Do we move the crate to one of the bedrooms, but then we would have to bring it back downstairs each day to the kitchen/family room area. Should we leave the TV on? Lights? I appreciate all of your help in advance!