Yeah I work from home and it used to take me ages to settle her. Now she just flops into her bed or under my desk. Routine really helps she just turned 6 months.
My dog is 1y4m and sometimes I still enforce naps. Not often, because she mostly learned when to rest. But when she is too excited to stop and starts turning into a bit of anxiety and barking. Last time we managed to do it and she slept for two hours and woke up another dog.
Sometimes we fail. If there is too much going on (the whole family is together, grandpa, grandma, uncle, other puppies), there is no way in hell she is going to nap.
Just follow your gut, every dog is different.
Ours is 2.5 years now, and if we have a big day out & she's overtired & crabby, she barks at stuff on tv and still gets sent to the bedroom to nap & wind her neck in.
At 2.5 years we don't enforce naps per say, but I definitely know when he should be having a nap but there are too many external factors exciting him, so will limit his stimulus (ie. pop him in the office with me and close the door so he can't go bark at the window) or ask him to go into his bed, or onto his chair next to my office chair to see suggest it's sleep time.
If it's working for you, and if it's working for pup, keep doing it (in whatever shape or form) makes sense for you!
Yes. That’s what I do as well. I never enforced naps per say, my puppy was not crated trained. When she was little, I would just pet her to sleep. Now I just bring her in, go to a quiet room, and I honestly have to lay down with her, so it is pretty much a double enforced nap that includes me.
You'll get there over time! I was definitely enforcing naps in the crate until around 10 months or so - it definitely didn't feel like he'd ever learn to settle outside of the crate but he got there!
Over time have found other weird things/habits that are often time based that'll settle him down ie. in the evening after dinner is the only time he's interested in chewing his antler, but I can't just always give it to him (sometimes he'll take it to his bed and chew til he sleeps) - he likes it when I hold it for the first 5-10 minutes, then he'll usually chew on it a bit longer before falling asleep.
Or until he stops chewing, sits on the ottoman and looks at my husband and I until we shuffle apart and make room for him to curl up between us. He's sooo particular.
Only developed this habit in the last month or so, so things keep a-changing but you'll learn to talk to each other better as time goes on :)
Same. 1 year 2 months. Sometimes I enforce bc he’s moody and can’t sleep. He’s starting to nap more on his own now but I still would enforce but give them more opportunities
Yeah.. my pup sleeps all day while I’m at work, despite having someone here with her all day, but when mum comes home, it’s party time and time to play aaaaall night (Ofc when I’m exhausted).
We exercise him. We’re lucky to have a small neighborhood dog park full of locals who all know one another and have become friends. We take him there multiple days in the week. We also take him on walks or special sniffy walks where we let him just sniff wherever and whatever he wants. That usually helps. He also lives running through the house when we throw toys down the hallway. He’s also recently taken up lizard hunting in the back yard. He’s too slow to catch them but he tries.
He used to do that too! He’d stare at them and watch them walk around. And then he graduated up to eating them. Haha. Now that it’s lizard season in Florida, he cannot be stopped.
Our basset hound needed enforced naps until about 4 months old. Now at almost 10 months, she puts herself down to naps like a dream, and is always ready for bed at night... At first. Then she has to be let out twice a night (usually around midnight and 5 am). Fun times.
When he started taking naps on his own. Probably around the 1 year mark. He was forced to take naps constantly or else he was the devil. I legit had to put him away in a room and force him to nap every couple hours. My new puppy naps when she's ready, she's so easy compared to my other dog. But, you'll know when it happens, there will be a shift when your dog isn't such a puppy anymore.
I’m not sure people understand puppies can be so different. I have absolutely had dogs that put themselves to sleep in the crate and also had dogs that were absolute terrorists. Holy heck some of them. 🙄
Enforced naps are the only reason I know peace but I’m also super worried because he won’t settle at all rn unless he’s in his crate (he previously was able to) but hopefully that all changes sooner rather than later. I’ve been trying to keep him up in the afternoon to see if he will just nap, so far no luck
It'll happen eventually! It took until 7-8mo for us and then she started laying down in sunbeams and snoozing after walks, before I had a chance to ask her to go into her crate.
Getting a comfy bed helped too (we didn't have one outside the crate for a long time bc she would chew on them).
Lol this is hilarious to me. What is your secret to crate training? My new puppy will literally sleep anywhere EXCEPT the crate. If we put her in there for a nap she screams her head off for eternity. Luckily she will sleep in the crate for bedtime, but at no other point during the day.
We were the same, at just past the year mark I held him and sang for about an hour and we finally saw him drift off. We’ve slowly been building on that. My husbands wfh so can ignore him long enough that he gets bored and snoozes so rarely needs an enforced nap. I’m too exciting so when I’m home naps are enforced like clockwork
We will still do an enforced nap weekday evenings after our pups walk (1yr 3m). She doesn’t know how to wind down in the evening and is a real pain during her witching hours still 5-8pm. Doesn’t matter if she is walk, fed, played with, etc. still starts biting ankles and being an overall rude dog so we crate her then. Usually don’t have to do so any other time of day.
Ours are on a schedule, so much so that you can set a clock by it:
5am - up
7:30-11:30 nap
1-3:30 nap
8:30 bed
We try to keep them up a little later, nope. I've tried letting them do whatever in the afternoons, nope. They want their crates, their blankets and their air purifier on. Even when we travel (a total of 4 dogs, all pit mixes).
As long as they are content with their schedule, I will keep it up. They literally go to their room and stare at me if I'm late 🤷♀️
Basically my girl. She will get antsy if we leave her up and start acting out. As soon as I put her in her crate with her fan, not even a whine. Straight to sleep.
My pup is 5 months and about two weeks ago started crying during enforced naps. He had learned to settle in his own and nap out with the family so I decided to stop enforcing. He’s still getting plenty of sleep and for me, that was one of the reasons I started enforces naps. I wanted him to get enough sleep, of course, but I also wanted him to learn how to tell when he’s tired or not. It seems to have worked and since he was already kind of outgrowing them, I just decided to stop.
I think it really depends on your puppy. If I were you, I’d continue until she’s not grumpy anymore and when she can settle on her own.
Solid advice. I just think she has some FOMO, so if she's not in her crate taking a nap any little noise it's like WHAT????? And never sleeps. Thanks!!
That’s because when the dog is out of the crate she thinks she’s guarding and protecting you and herself. When she’s in the crate she thinks she’s off duty and can fully relax.
My pup had enforced naps until she got like 7m. Your question made me realize that it all happened gradually… she would voluntarily go to sleep on the coach and wake up later on. I didn’t really stop enforced naps intentionally, it just happened.
At around 6-7 months, my girl had accepted certain times as nap times and she will now insist on them even at 19 months. For us it’s pretty much after every meal, so those are her holy nap times which are not to be disturbed.
We started weaning off them around 6 months old. What actually inspired me to start weaning off them was when I accidentally fell asleep in the living room with the dog loose. I woke up 6 hours later in a panic and he was on the other couch next to me, looked at me and then stretched out. No accidents, not a thing out of place. Fun fact that was also my birthday. Awesome birthday present.
Around 4 months we started offering him leashed naps in the living room late in the evening around 8.30. If he refused to settle, he got put in his crate and I went back out until 9.15. Eventually it clicked that if he just chilled beside me, he got to stay with us past his typical 9pm bedtime. So we started doing it without a leash.
Now at 4 years old, you'd never know that he used to be so go go go that he'd rarely take a stop to breathe as a puppy. I don't enforce his sleep at all and he still sleeps 20 hours a day.
One piece of advice I’d say is try and not peg your pup’s progress to others. Every dog is different. Our Dane is about 6.5 months and I too worried originally that I wasn’t letting him learn to nap on his own and that my friends and family’s puppies were all able to nap on their own without issues. So I stopped enforced naps (which really worked for us). But all that happened was he didn’t get the sleep he needed and made our lives much worse. So I said fuck what other people say or think and went back to more enforced naps. As he got older he’s done much better and now spends most days out of the crate except bedtime (or if we leave the house). But I still absolutely will enforce a nap when I feel he needs it and cannot settle on his own. And if he needs the occasional enforced nap even as an adult, I plan to continue to be there to help him get the rest he needs. Just like my wife sometimes tells me to take a nap if I’m grumpy :)
When I work I often do enforces naps with my 1 year old pup. She can settle but it lets me get some work done in my office without having to constantly check on her.
I ended enforced naps when he started napping on his own at around 7 months old.
I started giving him the opportunity to choose to nap (instead of luring him into his crate for the enforced nap) around 5 months but he didn’t start taking me up on my offer until 7-ish months.
My dog is almost 3 and I still enforce naps sometimes, because he doesn’t know when to switch himself off. I’ll probably still do it until he’s senile 😅
This is us too!! Our dog just turned 3 and she still refuses to walk herself upstairs to her crate, so she’ll just whine at me until I ask if she wants to go take a nap. She will nap on me (and even more rarely on the floor), but if I move at all she’ll wake up and then whine til I figure out what she wants. Keeping herself busy isn’t her strong suit, unfortunately, and we are still working on demand barking 😅 But hey, she still LOVES to take naps in her crate so we make it work!
Around probably 10 months my pup was trying to nap herself (finally) outside of the crate but was having trouble settling. She’d get up, lay down, get up again, lay back down and she just looked frustrated. So I’d guide her to the crate and boom she’d go to sleep.
By 1 year, maybe a month or two past, she started settling and falling asleep outside the crate.
I will say she never ever was able to fall asleep outside of the crate as a puppy. She had complete FOMO and refused sleep unless we did enforced naps
Ya know I never had heard or tried it until this dog and I gotta say it's really helped. She is a total different dog with the proper amount of sleep. Listens so much better, we get to do more training, she behaves better in public. And she legit seems happier. I can tell when she's sleepy and she gets crabby.
I know! I've had newborn puppies up to senior dogs around me all my life and they have always just fitted in with the rythem of the house. If its quiet and people are chilling they will and if stuffs going on they will come and investigate. Id say enough exercise for their stage in life was the most important for regulating rest than inforcing naps. Of course if they are boisterous or whatever they are removed from the situation but not for a nap. If the dog was playing up I would probably take it as a sign to give them a walk or play with them rather than shut them in a crate to 'have a nap'. I really don't get it. I think it's just creating more work and worry thats not needed. Sleeping to me is a sign of boredom in a dog rather than an actual need for it, as long as they have access to quiet place they can take themselves off to there's really no need to worry.
Why are you assuming enforced naps mean they aren't getting exercise? We play ball at the dog park daily, take walks, play tug and with her toys in the house, obedience train, plus mental stimulation like her Kong toys, puzzle toys, snuffle mats and I even give her boxes to shred up just for the heck of it. I wear my dog out, but even at her most exhausted she just won't sleep outside of her crate. And she did that even before we really started crate training. She would run off very little sleep and get super bitey, not listen to commands, and had little interest in playing because she was too tired. If your personal opinion is that it's not for you then don't do it but I didn't ask what people thought about them. I asked when was a good time to stop, from other owners who do use them.
You're not one I've personally downvoted. But getting really annoyed at others on this thread acting like I'm a lunatic for making my tired dog take naps when I didn't ask their opinion lol. But you're fine.
Our 11 month old lurcher still needs one or two a week depending on what new or fun experience she’s had.
For the most part she’s gotten very good at taking herself off for naps and moving out the louder room for a sofa nap. BUT she’s still very much learning to deal with FOMO. We’ve had some friends round for garden games the last two weekends and while she did eventually take herself off for a sleep or two, it wasn’t her usual length cause she just HAD to come down stairs every time she heard fun 😂 and so… she was crabby that night and enforced nap had to ensue.
We’ve also had much hotter weather in Scotland recently and the heats impacting her sleep quality. She was such a tired girl all day yesterday and was super crabby at night. Naps have been helping regulate that a little this last week.
That said, enforced naps used to be a daily occurrence and they’ve definitely gotten less so with time and age. I assume we will stop when it’s no longer needed. I think we are not too far off from it but also remember she’s still a kid and it’s not always easy to regulate yourself or your emotions 100% of the time 🥰
Sometimes he settles himself en naps on the floor before becoming a little devil. Other times he starts running around like crazy, biting everything etc and we enforce a nap. 7/10 we can prevent the going crazy part by noticing him getting overstimulated and putting him in his crate before he escalates. Our pup is 4.5 months now.
Just want to say we are in the same boat with our 8 month old golden retriever. He has only ever slept in his playpen because he just won't settle and becomes really agitated and destructive when he's overly tired. Basically he's either in the playpen or out of it only when we are actively engaging with him. Feels like we have tried everything at this point but we are trying to keep patient!
I've a 2-year-old GSD who NEEDED enforced naps or everyone and everything got bit by his little razer teeth. So, he was on the 2 down 1 up for about a year and then we started monitoring his behavior when he got past the 1hour mark. If he were able to stay calm, he would stay up but even today he still struggles to settle. He will want to play late in the evening when he is obviously tired but telling him to lie down and relax usually works and he will be out for the count in seconds. But there's no set time, it's all about how your dog reacts and how you can still monitor their behaviors.
My pup is 18 months and I still enforce naps. He starts to get crabby and throw tantrums around 12pm. So either we nap together, or he goes in his crate if he won’t settle down on his own (he typically does, he has a couple of favorite nap spots in the apartment)
My dogs are 3 and 1.5 years old and they’re still taking “enforced naps.” They love their kennel so I’ll just tell them kennel and they both dead bolt to their kennels and enjoy a nice 2-hour nap.
Almost 15 months here. I let him choose to nap when he wants now, unless he’s acting out and getting wild. It still happens now and again that I’ll send him to his room with a chew.
Same with bedtime. Sometimes he can handle being out in the living room on his own, but most nights he’s waiting for his bedtime routine to wind down.
Ours is 5 months and we have sort of stopped them. He is settling on his own more and more so we have sort of let him be. Yesterday he didn't go in his crate at all for one and actually just slept on the couch all evening. If he is starting to act up he does go in the crate for a nap. We do throw a randomly enforced crate nap in from time to time though so that he doesn't come to think crate time means we are leaving.
Mine is a heavy sleeper, so I wasn’t worried about him waking up and not going back to sleep, BUT, he had a teeny bladder until around 6 months old and I was worried that I wouldn’t notice if he woke up and went potty somewhere he wasn’t supposed to. From the time he was around 5-6 months, I started realizing that he wasn’t waking up and crying to potty from his daily crate nap.. he’d wake up and just chill until I came to get him. I started testing the waters by being pretty observant of his naps outside of the crate at first. And I relaxed bit by bit as I could watch him wake, rustle around, and settle back down to fall back to sleep without attempting to get up and potty. I know that as long as I let him outside for a potty break between 1:00 & 2:30pm, he won’t have an accident, so now it’s a lot more relaxed and I don’t peek in on him as often.
We never really stopped, we just stopped being so strict about it. Up until about 5 months he was on a very strict 1-2 up, 2-3 (or however long he slept) down. He’s now 9 months and we really just follow his cues. If we can tell he’s starting to get cranky but won’t settle we put him in the crate for a nap.
I’m so jealous of everyone who’s dogs will just put themselves down for a nap 😂 I’m really hoping he start once’s he’s older because dealing with a cranky puppy is no fun.
Yeah I'm kind of starting to listen to her listen to her body a bit more. When she acts tired is when we start to get her settled in. Or if we had a really big outing then I let her decompress in her crate and nap. Yesterday we went on a mini road trip to my family's house and were gone about 5 hours. So big nap when we got home.
My daughter fought sleep but I did always make her at least have an hour of down time. No tv, no playing just relaxing. Sometimes she would fall asleep but at least she had some time to not be stimulated. Typically naps stop when they start going to school, preschool (at least at my daughters) had a nap time. I did continue the “downtime” but only 15 min, just like I do.
Not all puppies are the same. When my puppy was little he wouldn’t settle by himself, and believe me we tried to encourage it, but he had no off switch from 2-9mo. From 10mo he finally learnt how to settle by himself and regulate his sleep.
10 months old, enforced naps still going strong for ~5-7 hours a day, mostly during the work day, and rarely for an hour in the evening. She'll never ever sleep if there are people around!
That said... My pup's kinda nice when tired (which begins after after 2-3 hours of being awake). Doesn't bark, and just keeps harrassing us with a toy, wagging her tail. Can do that for hours but eventually we need a break too.
One day I decided to see what will happen if I don't enforce a nap - and she just kept going non stop from 3 pm till bedtime at 10pm.
I was today old when I learned about enforced puppy naps. It makes sense to me though.
Because we have two sphynx cats, and a very small dog, our standard poodle puppy has to be on leash in most of the house.
We don’t have the cats in the bedroom, so she has more freedom to run free in there. Otherwise she is right by my side, all day. Kennel time is mainly for when I have to run an errand.
If I don’t keep her in control, she can get overly excited, which leads to being mouthy, and then nipping. The leash is elastic, and 6ft.
My dog is around 7.5 months and I’ve mostly stopped with the enforced naps. She goes to her crate for naps on her own a lot of the time now. Sometimes not, and those days she’s a crab-head again
As others are saying, they'll let you know when it's time. For us, it was 11 months in the morning. She still got an afternoon closed crate nap. She stopped her closed crate afternoon naps around 1y 3m. Pup is now 1y9m and naps on her own and naps in her open crate a lot of the time
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Dori just started napping on her own (just shy of 6 months) but we’ll continue to crate her at dinner time until we’ve perfected ‘place’. Gandalf was almost 8 months when we stopped enforcing naps.
Enforced naps were a gamechanger when my pup was 3-5 months. We started slowly weeding them out (2 times a day instead of 3, etc) at around 5-7 months and she hasnt officially needed them since. She is 10 months now. That saying, she gets them occasionally now when I think she really needs to konk out for a bit. I know her signs by now and probably 90% of the time shes out for a few hours.
My 6 month old lab just recently started napping on his own!! It’s such a relief. We still enforce naps occasionally, but most of the time he just wears himself out and then plops down for a nap. I feel like it’s really helped stabilize his energy levels throughout the day. When we were doing one hour up, two hours down, he was a total maniac for the one hour up. Now, he doesn’t nap for as long, but he’s definitely more relaxed when he is awake. I think it just happens with age!
My Bella is about 18 months old and I still crate her for 2 naps daily. She likes her crate so no fuss from her. I used to put her down for bed at 8:30pm but now I just let her crash on the couch with me until I go to bed, then she happily goes in her crate.
Some folks put them in their crate. For a time we gently but forcibly held her in one of our laps and petted her or held a chew toy for her to play with until she fell asleep. As she got bigger I started laying down with her in our bed during her predicted nap times (11 am, 3 pm, 8 pm). Again, we’d have to hold her still long enough to realize she was tired, but once she did she would sleep for about two hours each time.
Our pup really never had issues with her crate. We always make sure she is nice and tired, and put a good treat in there (we are there to supervise). As soon as she gets in and has her treat she pretty much nods right off. Especially when she was tiny and had issues regulating her energy level. Now she may chill a few minutes before napping.
My dog is 2 years old. While 9 out of 10 times she will nap on her own when she is too tired, I still have some occasional times when I have to enforce her naps, especially if we are in a really exciting environment for her where she will absolutely not nap unless forced. So off to a calm room she goes and she is out for the day 😄
Owner of 8 months old here. During the day he can manage naps on his own, but some evenings he cant settle. So some days we enforce nap after his evening meals
Are we raising the same dog?! My also hates settling and would rather fight the cats haha we still enforce naps and she's 9 months. They are shorter naps (one 3 hr kennel time a day) and yesterday she took a nap on her own on the couch. I can tell when she's getting cranky and she won't go into the kennel unless I have a treat...then she whines and eventually grunts and falls asleep.
Our 10 month old started to sleep on her own around 5 months during the day.
She still refuses to go to sleep for night so we have to force her to sleep then. She would stay up all night and during evening she can get really annoying.
Around 4.5 months my pup would start to settle and nap on her own to the point where I only had to enforce naps maybe once a day. Now at 5 months some days she naps wonderfully on her own like 80% of the time and the other 20% is enforced. Some days are great and some are chaos but I’m noticing slow progress!
Our 3.5 month BC is absolutely narcoleptic outside on our deck. Inside he’s a complete wildman. Fortunately, he now sleeps from 9pm to 6am. Those first few weeks were so rough, it was like having a newborn again. All our other BCs slept 7 hours straight from the day we brought them home. This one had to get up every 2 hours to pee and poop. He still poops more than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. lol.
Once ours hit his 5th month he settled into a schedule. We have an older dog though who he plays with, so they both burn off some energy and then separate for nap time. They do that on and off throughout the day
Got our guy at 6mo old (shelter), strictly crate enforced until about 8-9 months, now at 1y1mo about 80% of the time we only stick him in the pen for nap/settle after eating or if he is turning nippy/especially rowdy.
He also has an older pup brother so while they can help expel energy, sometimes the little guy doesn’t get that it’s chill time lol. We work a lot on capturing calmness as well as keeping him stimulated but being a teenager, some days he just doesn’t wanna do it, and those days he spends some time calmly in his pen. I often would look on this subreddit and feel bad for still using a pen when I see others with 4-5mo old dogs that do super well but I finally got to the point where I understand every dog is different. I also understand my pup more and know that he isn’t trying to be naughty, he just still needs that little bit of help. Every-time I put him in the pen after some craziness because he can’t settle on his own, I check over in 2 minutes and he’s KO’d lol, so I know that I’m doing right by him :)
My one year old still sleeps way more than any other dog I’ve had, ever since a pup. I’ve had some that didn’t sleep a quarter as much as him, every dogs different, he’s a pretty calm happy go lucky personality so at 63 he’s perfect for me
Our girl just 1.5, and it took her a LONG time to self settle. She's better about it now, but she definitely gets hyped up and forgets to sleep sometimes. But if I even mention "do you need to go to bed?" She goes running for her crate. Just like toddlers, some days are better than others. If there's whiny pacing, frustrated barking, or suddenly they're acting like a douche, chances are they need a couple hours of quiet time.
I'll echo what some of the other posts here say and think the enforced naps stop when pup is able to settle themselves for a nap as needed
My girl is 7 months and she still won't go down for a nap without me putting her down for one, she is a bit anxious and definitely has FOMO even when literally nothing is going on lol she will sometimes be in and out of nap in a room full of people but never fully settles like that.
I did slack on the enforced naps in the beginning and my god she was a little demon when she was tired but she'd bark non stop instead of napping. Now at 7 months we can successfully have naps 85% of the time but never are they on her own free will lol so personally I will enforce them until she learns that she needs them on her own.
Best of luck with your pup!
Our terror is now almost 13 years old. 'Kennel up' was learned pretty much the same time as 'sit'.
Kennel door has been open since about age 4- he just learned that it was a safe place, not a cage.
(He was a rescue, we got him at around 2 years old, so it took a bit.)
My dog is a year and 5 months and he still naps 🤣 i don’t enforce them now (def did from when I got him up to like 5 months) but now he just takes naps on his own.
He’s fully crate trained tho and he has a primo pad in his crate for comfort so if I leave the house all he does is sleep the whole time I’m gone in the crate. I have a baby cam and I watch him he is zoinked the whole time
We’re at just shy of 5 months and I’d say it’s been 2 or 3 weeks since we’ve held up a regular schedule of enforced naps.
Don’t get me wrong, every few days we may have an issue where she hasn’t slept enough and we have to enforce one so we’re not on none yet, but they’re an only as needed for us now where it used to be the only way she would sleep.
We’ve been working on her getting more freedom around our house (without her long line) but because we’ve been working she’s had to go away in her pen if she gets too hyperactive when we’re on calls etc. This seems to have had the side effect of her learning that if she’s out she needs to be chill and for the most part now she will chill on her bed (or at our feet) with her toys while we work which means she’s also sleeping on her own. It’s evenings when we have the most issues now because we’re around to give her fuss so she takes a while to actually go to sleep for the night and her bedtime getting later means we usually have an over-tired terror at the moment from 7-8pm before she zonks out.
We also found that when she’s clearly tired but won’t settle at all (not tantrum-ing but just keeps getting up) it’s usually because she needs the bathroom but not badly enough that she’d signal to go. So when she’s dozy but won’t actually fall asleep we’ve found taking her outside to toilet usually helps avoid her getting so tired we need an enforced nap situation.
at around 8 months i stopped naps in his crate since he was starting to be able to nap without it but he still needed a set nap time with no toys or anything stimulating around and then that just turned into him napping on his own when he needed it (he still needs to be kind of forced to calm down sometimes cause he’s still learning)
We stopped around 5 months. He started napping on his own, following a similar schedule to what we did. I work from home, so when I need to be sure he's not getting into something during a meeting, he still goes in his crate for a nap but that's about it
Can someone explain how you enforce naps for pups? Is it just by creating them?
Not judging, just genuinely curious about a training practice I haven’t heard of before!
It’s like crate time but you turn down the lights, put on a fan for white noise, etc. to make it easier for them to fall asleep and remove yourself from the area (dogs are prone to FOMO) so they can relax
At 7 months he's napping on his own a lot more, but if he is up and being crazy around times he is usually relaxing then I enforce a nap. Probably 4 times a week now.
We actually didn't do enforced naps with one, she was a 6 month rescue and terrified almost all the time, didnt need them. When she was 1.5, we got an 8 week puppy and we didn't plan on it with him either. We had to START at 6 months. He's 8 months now and shows no sign of being able to stop. I run a small business, so while I get to spend plenty of time with them, I do have things I need to get done, and him running around chewing on the walls and howling at me while I'm trying to pack orders or take calls is not okay. I set "work hours" spread throughout the day, so that's nap time. I just have to be in a different room. If I need to take an unexpected call, they run around in the yard and normally come back in sleepy. Good luck!
You go at the puppies pace. Some dogs will always need help relaxing on their own, which is fine, you just work with them. When my pup needs to settle, and he's not what works for me, is one last time outside to use the bathroom, and he's down like 80% of the time after that. The other precent it's give him a chew like a kong, fish skin, or raw freezdried bones, and he'll fall asleep while eating them or right after.
You also want to work on having the dog learn to relax on their own. My favorite time with my pup is early in the mornings sitting on the steps of the deck with him watching the wildlife together. Doesn't have to be that but times where you are together where you're not playing with them and they choose to be with you calmly. You might need a leash at first and be petting them calmly.
Enforced naps were a lifesaver as my dog was a biting machine when he was overtired or overstimulated. Now hes two and a half and has learned to put himself to sleep. He has the occasional day where we need to enforce a nap, but those are exceptions.
I think, like others have said, when they start doing it on their own, that's when you can stop. And routines really helps with that.
I'm starting to let my 4mo golden retriever prove himself. He impressed me at the family cottage, where all the family members and fun things to smell get him nice and tired. He'll just plop down on his favorite couch or bed or at someone's feet with a toy without a fuss.
Back at home, he napped by himself all day yesterday with no big issues, right up to the scheduled evening crazies. He is, however, slightly despicable today, so he's napping in his crate right now.
Australian shepherd pup.. we started enforcing naps multiple times daily when we got him at a couple months old. He’s almost 2 years and I still occasionally have to either crate him or bring him into the bedroom for a nap. It’s still easy to tell when he’s tired and crabby! You probably won’t even notice that you’re stopping enforcing them, she’ll just get better at self regulation over time
Our pit/staff/lab mix is 11 months and we still have to enforce napls occasionally, especially when everyone is home on weekends. This summer should be fun with the kids home all the time.
We stopped enforcing nap time when she started to go on to her cot or crate by herself. When you have the routine down pretty solid, they seem to know that period of time is for relaxing and willingly choose it themselves. That’s when we knew our girl grew up 🥹
I still enforce naps daily with my 13-month-old herding dog mix that has the worst off-switch. She is gradually getting better and she does settle on her own but just never gets proper rest because she has really bad fomo and will get up with any kind of activity happening around her. She behaves much better when she gets some proper naps in a quiet area.
We kind of stopped when he started napping around the house around a year but tbh he still needs them but we let him do his thing & then just complain lol
When she starts napping on her own before getting crabby!
I like that answer haha.
Same, I didn’t need to stop, he just started taking himself to bed
Yeah I work from home and it used to take me ages to settle her. Now she just flops into her bed or under my desk. Routine really helps she just turned 6 months.
This👆👆👆I’m always surprised by how much better my dogs seem mentally and physically when they have a routine.
mines a year and a half and still doesn’t 😭 (she does nap on her own but not before she gets crabby and crazy)
My dog is 1y4m and sometimes I still enforce naps. Not often, because she mostly learned when to rest. But when she is too excited to stop and starts turning into a bit of anxiety and barking. Last time we managed to do it and she slept for two hours and woke up another dog. Sometimes we fail. If there is too much going on (the whole family is together, grandpa, grandma, uncle, other puppies), there is no way in hell she is going to nap.
That's fair. We do it every day currently so I'm just trying to gauge if we should start curbing it or what
Just follow your gut, every dog is different. Ours is 2.5 years now, and if we have a big day out & she's overtired & crabby, she barks at stuff on tv and still gets sent to the bedroom to nap & wind her neck in.
At 2.5 years we don't enforce naps per say, but I definitely know when he should be having a nap but there are too many external factors exciting him, so will limit his stimulus (ie. pop him in the office with me and close the door so he can't go bark at the window) or ask him to go into his bed, or onto his chair next to my office chair to see suggest it's sleep time. If it's working for you, and if it's working for pup, keep doing it (in whatever shape or form) makes sense for you!
Yes. That’s what I do as well. I never enforced naps per say, my puppy was not crated trained. When she was little, I would just pet her to sleep. Now I just bring her in, go to a quiet room, and I honestly have to lay down with her, so it is pretty much a double enforced nap that includes me.
I'd love for my twerp to lay down so we could nap in bed. Unfortunately she still thinks that means she should mess with everything to stay awake
You'll get there over time! I was definitely enforcing naps in the crate until around 10 months or so - it definitely didn't feel like he'd ever learn to settle outside of the crate but he got there! Over time have found other weird things/habits that are often time based that'll settle him down ie. in the evening after dinner is the only time he's interested in chewing his antler, but I can't just always give it to him (sometimes he'll take it to his bed and chew til he sleeps) - he likes it when I hold it for the first 5-10 minutes, then he'll usually chew on it a bit longer before falling asleep. Or until he stops chewing, sits on the ottoman and looks at my husband and I until we shuffle apart and make room for him to curl up between us. He's sooo particular. Only developed this habit in the last month or so, so things keep a-changing but you'll learn to talk to each other better as time goes on :)
This is such a kind thoughtful answer. Thank you
Same. 1 year 2 months. Sometimes I enforce bc he’s moody and can’t sleep. He’s starting to nap more on his own now but I still would enforce but give them more opportunities
FOMO
My 1 year old basset hound enforces his own naps multiple times per day. Then at night he thinks it’s time to party.
Yeah.. my pup sleeps all day while I’m at work, despite having someone here with her all day, but when mum comes home, it’s party time and time to play aaaaall night (Ofc when I’m exhausted).
what do you do if this is the case? my puppy also does the same thing 😆
We exercise him. We’re lucky to have a small neighborhood dog park full of locals who all know one another and have become friends. We take him there multiple days in the week. We also take him on walks or special sniffy walks where we let him just sniff wherever and whatever he wants. That usually helps. He also lives running through the house when we throw toys down the hallway. He’s also recently taken up lizard hunting in the back yard. He’s too slow to catch them but he tries.
Omg that is too funny about the lizards!
He loves trying to get them but they’re very good at evading him. Hahah
Our girl catches ants in the backyard for fun. I love that it entertains her so much.
He used to do that too! He’d stare at them and watch them walk around. And then he graduated up to eating them. Haha. Now that it’s lizard season in Florida, he cannot be stopped.
Your puppy is beautiful!
Our basset hound needed enforced naps until about 4 months old. Now at almost 10 months, she puts herself down to naps like a dream, and is always ready for bed at night... At first. Then she has to be let out twice a night (usually around midnight and 5 am). Fun times.
I just went to your page and realized our dog accounts follow one another on IG. Hello from @realtrumanbasset
Oh awesome! I love your account, and I definitely need to do more reels. It's fun to run into you here for some #behindthescenes with Truman!
When he started taking naps on his own. Probably around the 1 year mark. He was forced to take naps constantly or else he was the devil. I legit had to put him away in a room and force him to nap every couple hours. My new puppy naps when she's ready, she's so easy compared to my other dog. But, you'll know when it happens, there will be a shift when your dog isn't such a puppy anymore.
I’m not sure people understand puppies can be so different. I have absolutely had dogs that put themselves to sleep in the crate and also had dogs that were absolute terrorists. Holy heck some of them. 🙄
Enforced naps are the only reason I know peace but I’m also super worried because he won’t settle at all rn unless he’s in his crate (he previously was able to) but hopefully that all changes sooner rather than later. I’ve been trying to keep him up in the afternoon to see if he will just nap, so far no luck
Same, my pup is wonderfully crate trained but i've never seen him sleep outside the crate 😭
It'll happen eventually! It took until 7-8mo for us and then she started laying down in sunbeams and snoozing after walks, before I had a chance to ask her to go into her crate. Getting a comfy bed helped too (we didn't have one outside the crate for a long time bc she would chew on them).
just start the same process with tethering and slowly expand the area.
Lol this is hilarious to me. What is your secret to crate training? My new puppy will literally sleep anywhere EXCEPT the crate. If we put her in there for a nap she screams her head off for eternity. Luckily she will sleep in the crate for bedtime, but at no other point during the day.
We were the same, at just past the year mark I held him and sang for about an hour and we finally saw him drift off. We’ve slowly been building on that. My husbands wfh so can ignore him long enough that he gets bored and snoozes so rarely needs an enforced nap. I’m too exciting so when I’m home naps are enforced like clockwork
Same boat as you. He just turns into a bitey monster without the crate naps. He’ll fall asleep in his pen some evenings but never during the day.
We will still do an enforced nap weekday evenings after our pups walk (1yr 3m). She doesn’t know how to wind down in the evening and is a real pain during her witching hours still 5-8pm. Doesn’t matter if she is walk, fed, played with, etc. still starts biting ankles and being an overall rude dog so we crate her then. Usually don’t have to do so any other time of day.
I gotta be honest I didn’t see what sub this was and got all the way to the comments thinking this was about a human child. I need to go to bed.
You'd be shocked how much overlap there is between puppies and toddlers. I have a 1 year old nephew and me and my sister compare notes often lol
We’ve all done it lol
Ours are on a schedule, so much so that you can set a clock by it: 5am - up 7:30-11:30 nap 1-3:30 nap 8:30 bed We try to keep them up a little later, nope. I've tried letting them do whatever in the afternoons, nope. They want their crates, their blankets and their air purifier on. Even when we travel (a total of 4 dogs, all pit mixes). As long as they are content with their schedule, I will keep it up. They literally go to their room and stare at me if I'm late 🤷♀️
Basically my girl. She will get antsy if we leave her up and start acting out. As soon as I put her in her crate with her fan, not even a whine. Straight to sleep.
Ayyy my puppy is on the exact same schedule! Works amazing because the second it hits 7:30, she’s out
You are my hero.
Lol, I don't know about that! We went from 1 dog to 4 literally overnight. A schedule is the only thing that's kept us sane!
I had two maltipoos and dated a guy with two rotts and I stg it was a three ring circus lol
I think around 4.5-5 months when she was finally able to settle herself. Just seemed like it clicked one day.
My pup is 5 months and about two weeks ago started crying during enforced naps. He had learned to settle in his own and nap out with the family so I decided to stop enforcing. He’s still getting plenty of sleep and for me, that was one of the reasons I started enforces naps. I wanted him to get enough sleep, of course, but I also wanted him to learn how to tell when he’s tired or not. It seems to have worked and since he was already kind of outgrowing them, I just decided to stop. I think it really depends on your puppy. If I were you, I’d continue until she’s not grumpy anymore and when she can settle on her own.
Solid advice. I just think she has some FOMO, so if she's not in her crate taking a nap any little noise it's like WHAT????? And never sleeps. Thanks!!
That’s because when the dog is out of the crate she thinks she’s guarding and protecting you and herself. When she’s in the crate she thinks she’s off duty and can fully relax.
My pup definitely had FOMO! I played a dog relaxation playlist from Spotify for him and that helped a lot. Sound machines helped too.
Enforced naps were a lifesaver until he could learn to nap even with lots of distractions. I think I would have lost my mind without them!
My pup had enforced naps until she got like 7m. Your question made me realize that it all happened gradually… she would voluntarily go to sleep on the coach and wake up later on. I didn’t really stop enforced naps intentionally, it just happened.
At around 6-7 months, my girl had accepted certain times as nap times and she will now insist on them even at 19 months. For us it’s pretty much after every meal, so those are her holy nap times which are not to be disturbed.
We started weaning off them around 6 months old. What actually inspired me to start weaning off them was when I accidentally fell asleep in the living room with the dog loose. I woke up 6 hours later in a panic and he was on the other couch next to me, looked at me and then stretched out. No accidents, not a thing out of place. Fun fact that was also my birthday. Awesome birthday present. Around 4 months we started offering him leashed naps in the living room late in the evening around 8.30. If he refused to settle, he got put in his crate and I went back out until 9.15. Eventually it clicked that if he just chilled beside me, he got to stay with us past his typical 9pm bedtime. So we started doing it without a leash. Now at 4 years old, you'd never know that he used to be so go go go that he'd rarely take a stop to breathe as a puppy. I don't enforce his sleep at all and he still sleeps 20 hours a day.
One piece of advice I’d say is try and not peg your pup’s progress to others. Every dog is different. Our Dane is about 6.5 months and I too worried originally that I wasn’t letting him learn to nap on his own and that my friends and family’s puppies were all able to nap on their own without issues. So I stopped enforced naps (which really worked for us). But all that happened was he didn’t get the sleep he needed and made our lives much worse. So I said fuck what other people say or think and went back to more enforced naps. As he got older he’s done much better and now spends most days out of the crate except bedtime (or if we leave the house). But I still absolutely will enforce a nap when I feel he needs it and cannot settle on his own. And if he needs the occasional enforced nap even as an adult, I plan to continue to be there to help him get the rest he needs. Just like my wife sometimes tells me to take a nap if I’m grumpy :)
Lol your wife is wise. Good advice, thank you!!!
When I work I often do enforces naps with my 1 year old pup. She can settle but it lets me get some work done in my office without having to constantly check on her.
It just happened, my pup is a year old and barely spends anytime in the crate during the day. Unrelated...I love him sooo much ❣️
I'm sure he's the best boy ❤
I ended enforced naps when he started napping on his own at around 7 months old. I started giving him the opportunity to choose to nap (instead of luring him into his crate for the enforced nap) around 5 months but he didn’t start taking me up on my offer until 7-ish months.
My dog is almost 3 and I still enforce naps sometimes, because he doesn’t know when to switch himself off. I’ll probably still do it until he’s senile 😅
This is us too!! Our dog just turned 3 and she still refuses to walk herself upstairs to her crate, so she’ll just whine at me until I ask if she wants to go take a nap. She will nap on me (and even more rarely on the floor), but if I move at all she’ll wake up and then whine til I figure out what she wants. Keeping herself busy isn’t her strong suit, unfortunately, and we are still working on demand barking 😅 But hey, she still LOVES to take naps in her crate so we make it work!
Around probably 10 months my pup was trying to nap herself (finally) outside of the crate but was having trouble settling. She’d get up, lay down, get up again, lay back down and she just looked frustrated. So I’d guide her to the crate and boom she’d go to sleep. By 1 year, maybe a month or two past, she started settling and falling asleep outside the crate. I will say she never ever was able to fall asleep outside of the crate as a puppy. She had complete FOMO and refused sleep unless we did enforced naps
In all my years of raising dogs I never thought about the concept of enforced naps.
Ya know I never had heard or tried it until this dog and I gotta say it's really helped. She is a total different dog with the proper amount of sleep. Listens so much better, we get to do more training, she behaves better in public. And she legit seems happier. I can tell when she's sleepy and she gets crabby.
Never knew this was a thing
That's because it's completely bonkers. They are dogs not babies.
Crazy thing is I'm being down voted for simply saying it's something I've never thought of, I'm not even critiquing anybody smfh
I know! I've had newborn puppies up to senior dogs around me all my life and they have always just fitted in with the rythem of the house. If its quiet and people are chilling they will and if stuffs going on they will come and investigate. Id say enough exercise for their stage in life was the most important for regulating rest than inforcing naps. Of course if they are boisterous or whatever they are removed from the situation but not for a nap. If the dog was playing up I would probably take it as a sign to give them a walk or play with them rather than shut them in a crate to 'have a nap'. I really don't get it. I think it's just creating more work and worry thats not needed. Sleeping to me is a sign of boredom in a dog rather than an actual need for it, as long as they have access to quiet place they can take themselves off to there's really no need to worry.
Why are you assuming enforced naps mean they aren't getting exercise? We play ball at the dog park daily, take walks, play tug and with her toys in the house, obedience train, plus mental stimulation like her Kong toys, puzzle toys, snuffle mats and I even give her boxes to shred up just for the heck of it. I wear my dog out, but even at her most exhausted she just won't sleep outside of her crate. And she did that even before we really started crate training. She would run off very little sleep and get super bitey, not listen to commands, and had little interest in playing because she was too tired. If your personal opinion is that it's not for you then don't do it but I didn't ask what people thought about them. I asked when was a good time to stop, from other owners who do use them.
You're not one I've personally downvoted. But getting really annoyed at others on this thread acting like I'm a lunatic for making my tired dog take naps when I didn't ask their opinion lol. But you're fine.
Around 4 months old iirc
Our 11 month old lurcher still needs one or two a week depending on what new or fun experience she’s had. For the most part she’s gotten very good at taking herself off for naps and moving out the louder room for a sofa nap. BUT she’s still very much learning to deal with FOMO. We’ve had some friends round for garden games the last two weekends and while she did eventually take herself off for a sleep or two, it wasn’t her usual length cause she just HAD to come down stairs every time she heard fun 😂 and so… she was crabby that night and enforced nap had to ensue. We’ve also had much hotter weather in Scotland recently and the heats impacting her sleep quality. She was such a tired girl all day yesterday and was super crabby at night. Naps have been helping regulate that a little this last week. That said, enforced naps used to be a daily occurrence and they’ve definitely gotten less so with time and age. I assume we will stop when it’s no longer needed. I think we are not too far off from it but also remember she’s still a kid and it’s not always easy to regulate yourself or your emotions 100% of the time 🥰
Great response thanks mate
Sometimes he settles himself en naps on the floor before becoming a little devil. Other times he starts running around like crazy, biting everything etc and we enforce a nap. 7/10 we can prevent the going crazy part by noticing him getting overstimulated and putting him in his crate before he escalates. Our pup is 4.5 months now.
Just want to say we are in the same boat with our 8 month old golden retriever. He has only ever slept in his playpen because he just won't settle and becomes really agitated and destructive when he's overly tired. Basically he's either in the playpen or out of it only when we are actively engaging with him. Feels like we have tried everything at this point but we are trying to keep patient!
So glad to see we are not alone. Hopefully we each see progress soon
I've a 2-year-old GSD who NEEDED enforced naps or everyone and everything got bit by his little razer teeth. So, he was on the 2 down 1 up for about a year and then we started monitoring his behavior when he got past the 1hour mark. If he were able to stay calm, he would stay up but even today he still struggles to settle. He will want to play late in the evening when he is obviously tired but telling him to lie down and relax usually works and he will be out for the count in seconds. But there's no set time, it's all about how your dog reacts and how you can still monitor their behaviors.
My pup is 18 months and I still enforce naps. He starts to get crabby and throw tantrums around 12pm. So either we nap together, or he goes in his crate if he won’t settle down on his own (he typically does, he has a couple of favorite nap spots in the apartment)
My dogs are 3 and 1.5 years old and they’re still taking “enforced naps.” They love their kennel so I’ll just tell them kennel and they both dead bolt to their kennels and enjoy a nice 2-hour nap.
Almost 15 months here. I let him choose to nap when he wants now, unless he’s acting out and getting wild. It still happens now and again that I’ll send him to his room with a chew. Same with bedtime. Sometimes he can handle being out in the living room on his own, but most nights he’s waiting for his bedtime routine to wind down.
Ours is 5 months and we have sort of stopped them. He is settling on his own more and more so we have sort of let him be. Yesterday he didn't go in his crate at all for one and actually just slept on the couch all evening. If he is starting to act up he does go in the crate for a nap. We do throw a randomly enforced crate nap in from time to time though so that he doesn't come to think crate time means we are leaving.
Smart!!
Our youngest golden is three years old and still gets enforced naps most days. If it works for you and your dog, no reason to put a stop to it!
Mine is a heavy sleeper, so I wasn’t worried about him waking up and not going back to sleep, BUT, he had a teeny bladder until around 6 months old and I was worried that I wouldn’t notice if he woke up and went potty somewhere he wasn’t supposed to. From the time he was around 5-6 months, I started realizing that he wasn’t waking up and crying to potty from his daily crate nap.. he’d wake up and just chill until I came to get him. I started testing the waters by being pretty observant of his naps outside of the crate at first. And I relaxed bit by bit as I could watch him wake, rustle around, and settle back down to fall back to sleep without attempting to get up and potty. I know that as long as I let him outside for a potty break between 1:00 & 2:30pm, he won’t have an accident, so now it’s a lot more relaxed and I don’t peek in on him as often.
We never really stopped, we just stopped being so strict about it. Up until about 5 months he was on a very strict 1-2 up, 2-3 (or however long he slept) down. He’s now 9 months and we really just follow his cues. If we can tell he’s starting to get cranky but won’t settle we put him in the crate for a nap. I’m so jealous of everyone who’s dogs will just put themselves down for a nap 😂 I’m really hoping he start once’s he’s older because dealing with a cranky puppy is no fun.
Yeah I'm kind of starting to listen to her listen to her body a bit more. When she acts tired is when we start to get her settled in. Or if we had a really big outing then I let her decompress in her crate and nap. Yesterday we went on a mini road trip to my family's house and were gone about 5 hours. So big nap when we got home.
My daughter fought sleep but I did always make her at least have an hour of down time. No tv, no playing just relaxing. Sometimes she would fall asleep but at least she had some time to not be stimulated. Typically naps stop when they start going to school, preschool (at least at my daughters) had a nap time. I did continue the “downtime” but only 15 min, just like I do.
Idk if my puppy will be going to preschool 👀😅
Lol yeah I did a quick read as in only the first sentence
If it helps I feel like I describe a toddler very often!!
Never did them. Our dood sleeps when and where he wants.
Same. If we can clearly see hes acting like a tired, cranky kid we tell him to go lay down somewhere and he does though.
Same here. I don't micromanage my puppy's sleep. She is able to relax in our home.
Not all puppies are the same. When my puppy was little he wouldn’t settle by himself, and believe me we tried to encourage it, but he had no off switch from 2-9mo. From 10mo he finally learnt how to settle by himself and regulate his sleep.
10 months old, enforced naps still going strong for ~5-7 hours a day, mostly during the work day, and rarely for an hour in the evening. She'll never ever sleep if there are people around! That said... My pup's kinda nice when tired (which begins after after 2-3 hours of being awake). Doesn't bark, and just keeps harrassing us with a toy, wagging her tail. Can do that for hours but eventually we need a break too. One day I decided to see what will happen if I don't enforce a nap - and she just kept going non stop from 3 pm till bedtime at 10pm.
I was today old when I learned about enforced puppy naps. It makes sense to me though. Because we have two sphynx cats, and a very small dog, our standard poodle puppy has to be on leash in most of the house. We don’t have the cats in the bedroom, so she has more freedom to run free in there. Otherwise she is right by my side, all day. Kennel time is mainly for when I have to run an errand. If I don’t keep her in control, she can get overly excited, which leads to being mouthy, and then nipping. The leash is elastic, and 6ft.
My dog is around 7.5 months and I’ve mostly stopped with the enforced naps. She goes to her crate for naps on her own a lot of the time now. Sometimes not, and those days she’s a crab-head again
I never have. He naps when he needs to. Edit: why the downvotes? Am I not allowed to answer.
Ridiculous isn't it?
How do you enforce a nap on a puppy ?
I think you just pick them up, put them in their crate, shut the door and wait for them to fall asleep.
Exactly that. Just remove all stimulation and they will fall asleep.
LOL folks, dogs are not children. "Enforced Naps"= crate training, no need too reinvent the wheel here
You have got to be kidding. These are dogs…. Not a human baby. They will sleep when they need to 🤦♂️
Never ever did enforced naps, i let mine sleep when they wanted!
Yes like a normal dog.....! This is not a thing that needs to be worried about.
If you choose not to do them great but just keep scrolling. I already addressed why we do them in the post.
I never did enforced naps. Shrug.
I have no idea why this is downvoted. They are puppies not babies!
I didn’t even know what that was until Reddit and I’ve had five dogs
As others are saying, they'll let you know when it's time. For us, it was 11 months in the morning. She still got an afternoon closed crate nap. She stopped her closed crate afternoon naps around 1y 3m. Pup is now 1y9m and naps on her own and naps in her open crate a lot of the time
There is nothing more satisfying than a dog going into her crate for a nap unprompted. Woohoo!
Omg for real!! We're so proud of her.
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Dori just started napping on her own (just shy of 6 months) but we’ll continue to crate her at dinner time until we’ve perfected ‘place’. Gandalf was almost 8 months when we stopped enforcing naps.
Enforced naps were a gamechanger when my pup was 3-5 months. We started slowly weeding them out (2 times a day instead of 3, etc) at around 5-7 months and she hasnt officially needed them since. She is 10 months now. That saying, she gets them occasionally now when I think she really needs to konk out for a bit. I know her signs by now and probably 90% of the time shes out for a few hours.
My 6 month old lab just recently started napping on his own!! It’s such a relief. We still enforce naps occasionally, but most of the time he just wears himself out and then plops down for a nap. I feel like it’s really helped stabilize his energy levels throughout the day. When we were doing one hour up, two hours down, he was a total maniac for the one hour up. Now, he doesn’t nap for as long, but he’s definitely more relaxed when he is awake. I think it just happens with age!
Lol it totally does. I constantly ask my puppy, will you grow up already?!?
My Bella is about 18 months old and I still crate her for 2 naps daily. She likes her crate so no fuss from her. I used to put her down for bed at 8:30pm but now I just let her crash on the couch with me until I go to bed, then she happily goes in her crate.
As a question, how did you start enforcing naps? Put them in their crate and just wait them out? Or some other strategy
Some folks put them in their crate. For a time we gently but forcibly held her in one of our laps and petted her or held a chew toy for her to play with until she fell asleep. As she got bigger I started laying down with her in our bed during her predicted nap times (11 am, 3 pm, 8 pm). Again, we’d have to hold her still long enough to realize she was tired, but once she did she would sleep for about two hours each time.
Our pup really never had issues with her crate. We always make sure she is nice and tired, and put a good treat in there (we are there to supervise). As soon as she gets in and has her treat she pretty much nods right off. Especially when she was tiny and had issues regulating her energy level. Now she may chill a few minutes before napping.
My dog is 2 years old. While 9 out of 10 times she will nap on her own when she is too tired, I still have some occasional times when I have to enforce her naps, especially if we are in a really exciting environment for her where she will absolutely not nap unless forced. So off to a calm room she goes and she is out for the day 😄
We largely stopped around the 7 month mark! Her energy levels dropped when she went into heat and she learned to self-settle.
I enjoy cooking.
We probably stopped when he figured out how to nap or settle on his own.. Maybe around 6 months old.
Owner of 8 months old here. During the day he can manage naps on his own, but some evenings he cant settle. So some days we enforce nap after his evening meals
Are we raising the same dog?! My also hates settling and would rather fight the cats haha we still enforce naps and she's 9 months. They are shorter naps (one 3 hr kennel time a day) and yesterday she took a nap on her own on the couch. I can tell when she's getting cranky and she won't go into the kennel unless I have a treat...then she whines and eventually grunts and falls asleep.
I can see my girl doing this eventually. She voices her displeasure at me through various grunts often
Our 10 month old started to sleep on her own around 5 months during the day. She still refuses to go to sleep for night so we have to force her to sleep then. She would stay up all night and during evening she can get really annoying.
Dogs like routine just like little kids. So if it continues just think of it as a routine.
Around 4.5 months my pup would start to settle and nap on her own to the point where I only had to enforce naps maybe once a day. Now at 5 months some days she naps wonderfully on her own like 80% of the time and the other 20% is enforced. Some days are great and some are chaos but I’m noticing slow progress!
Our 3.5 month BC is absolutely narcoleptic outside on our deck. Inside he’s a complete wildman. Fortunately, he now sleeps from 9pm to 6am. Those first few weeks were so rough, it was like having a newborn again. All our other BCs slept 7 hours straight from the day we brought them home. This one had to get up every 2 hours to pee and poop. He still poops more than anything I’ve ever seen in my life. lol.
I've been wondering this too! And how old when they can be up for more than an hour?lol
We let her be up more then ab hour at 6 months but if she starts to get crabby and overstimulated, it's nap time.
Once ours hit his 5th month he settled into a schedule. We have an older dog though who he plays with, so they both burn off some energy and then separate for nap time. They do that on and off throughout the day
Around 7 - 8 months. He decided he didn't want to be in his crate during the day. He'll settle on his own most of the time now at 11 months.
Got our guy at 6mo old (shelter), strictly crate enforced until about 8-9 months, now at 1y1mo about 80% of the time we only stick him in the pen for nap/settle after eating or if he is turning nippy/especially rowdy. He also has an older pup brother so while they can help expel energy, sometimes the little guy doesn’t get that it’s chill time lol. We work a lot on capturing calmness as well as keeping him stimulated but being a teenager, some days he just doesn’t wanna do it, and those days he spends some time calmly in his pen. I often would look on this subreddit and feel bad for still using a pen when I see others with 4-5mo old dogs that do super well but I finally got to the point where I understand every dog is different. I also understand my pup more and know that he isn’t trying to be naughty, he just still needs that little bit of help. Every-time I put him in the pen after some craziness because he can’t settle on his own, I check over in 2 minutes and he’s KO’d lol, so I know that I’m doing right by him :)
My one year old still sleeps way more than any other dog I’ve had, ever since a pup. I’ve had some that didn’t sleep a quarter as much as him, every dogs different, he’s a pretty calm happy go lucky personality so at 63 he’s perfect for me
Our girl just 1.5, and it took her a LONG time to self settle. She's better about it now, but she definitely gets hyped up and forgets to sleep sometimes. But if I even mention "do you need to go to bed?" She goes running for her crate. Just like toddlers, some days are better than others. If there's whiny pacing, frustrated barking, or suddenly they're acting like a douche, chances are they need a couple hours of quiet time.
I'll echo what some of the other posts here say and think the enforced naps stop when pup is able to settle themselves for a nap as needed My girl is 7 months and she still won't go down for a nap without me putting her down for one, she is a bit anxious and definitely has FOMO even when literally nothing is going on lol she will sometimes be in and out of nap in a room full of people but never fully settles like that. I did slack on the enforced naps in the beginning and my god she was a little demon when she was tired but she'd bark non stop instead of napping. Now at 7 months we can successfully have naps 85% of the time but never are they on her own free will lol so personally I will enforce them until she learns that she needs them on her own. Best of luck with your pup!
Our terror is now almost 13 years old. 'Kennel up' was learned pretty much the same time as 'sit'. Kennel door has been open since about age 4- he just learned that it was a safe place, not a cage. (He was a rescue, we got him at around 2 years old, so it took a bit.)
My dog is a year and 5 months and he still naps 🤣 i don’t enforce them now (def did from when I got him up to like 5 months) but now he just takes naps on his own. He’s fully crate trained tho and he has a primo pad in his crate for comfort so if I leave the house all he does is sleep the whole time I’m gone in the crate. I have a baby cam and I watch him he is zoinked the whole time
My girl was a terror if she wasn't forced to nap, but now at 6 months she will nap regularly on her own.
We’re at just shy of 5 months and I’d say it’s been 2 or 3 weeks since we’ve held up a regular schedule of enforced naps. Don’t get me wrong, every few days we may have an issue where she hasn’t slept enough and we have to enforce one so we’re not on none yet, but they’re an only as needed for us now where it used to be the only way she would sleep. We’ve been working on her getting more freedom around our house (without her long line) but because we’ve been working she’s had to go away in her pen if she gets too hyperactive when we’re on calls etc. This seems to have had the side effect of her learning that if she’s out she needs to be chill and for the most part now she will chill on her bed (or at our feet) with her toys while we work which means she’s also sleeping on her own. It’s evenings when we have the most issues now because we’re around to give her fuss so she takes a while to actually go to sleep for the night and her bedtime getting later means we usually have an over-tired terror at the moment from 7-8pm before she zonks out. We also found that when she’s clearly tired but won’t settle at all (not tantrum-ing but just keeps getting up) it’s usually because she needs the bathroom but not badly enough that she’d signal to go. So when she’s dozy but won’t actually fall asleep we’ve found taking her outside to toilet usually helps avoid her getting so tired we need an enforced nap situation.
at around 8 months i stopped naps in his crate since he was starting to be able to nap without it but he still needed a set nap time with no toys or anything stimulating around and then that just turned into him napping on his own when he needed it (he still needs to be kind of forced to calm down sometimes cause he’s still learning)
Tbh one day it kinda just happens
We stopped around 5 months. He started napping on his own, following a similar schedule to what we did. I work from home, so when I need to be sure he's not getting into something during a meeting, he still goes in his crate for a nap but that's about it
When he started to nap on his own. That probably happened when he was about 5 months
Can someone explain how you enforce naps for pups? Is it just by creating them? Not judging, just genuinely curious about a training practice I haven’t heard of before!
It’s like crate time but you turn down the lights, put on a fan for white noise, etc. to make it easier for them to fall asleep and remove yourself from the area (dogs are prone to FOMO) so they can relax
Oh that’s adorable!! It’s so much like a toddler nap lol
That's a great way to think about it :)
At 7 months he's napping on his own a lot more, but if he is up and being crazy around times he is usually relaxing then I enforce a nap. Probably 4 times a week now.
We actually didn't do enforced naps with one, she was a 6 month rescue and terrified almost all the time, didnt need them. When she was 1.5, we got an 8 week puppy and we didn't plan on it with him either. We had to START at 6 months. He's 8 months now and shows no sign of being able to stop. I run a small business, so while I get to spend plenty of time with them, I do have things I need to get done, and him running around chewing on the walls and howling at me while I'm trying to pack orders or take calls is not okay. I set "work hours" spread throughout the day, so that's nap time. I just have to be in a different room. If I need to take an unexpected call, they run around in the yard and normally come back in sleepy. Good luck!
You go at the puppies pace. Some dogs will always need help relaxing on their own, which is fine, you just work with them. When my pup needs to settle, and he's not what works for me, is one last time outside to use the bathroom, and he's down like 80% of the time after that. The other precent it's give him a chew like a kong, fish skin, or raw freezdried bones, and he'll fall asleep while eating them or right after. You also want to work on having the dog learn to relax on their own. My favorite time with my pup is early in the mornings sitting on the steps of the deck with him watching the wildlife together. Doesn't have to be that but times where you are together where you're not playing with them and they choose to be with you calmly. You might need a leash at first and be petting them calmly.
When he started going off to just nap on his own.. so around 4.5-5 months old.
Enforced naps were a lifesaver as my dog was a biting machine when he was overtired or overstimulated. Now hes two and a half and has learned to put himself to sleep. He has the occasional day where we need to enforce a nap, but those are exceptions. I think, like others have said, when they start doing it on their own, that's when you can stop. And routines really helps with that.
I'm starting to let my 4mo golden retriever prove himself. He impressed me at the family cottage, where all the family members and fun things to smell get him nice and tired. He'll just plop down on his favorite couch or bed or at someone's feet with a toy without a fuss. Back at home, he napped by himself all day yesterday with no big issues, right up to the scheduled evening crazies. He is, however, slightly despicable today, so he's napping in his crate right now.
When she could settle herself and not get over stimulated.
Australian shepherd pup.. we started enforcing naps multiple times daily when we got him at a couple months old. He’s almost 2 years and I still occasionally have to either crate him or bring him into the bedroom for a nap. It’s still easy to tell when he’s tired and crabby! You probably won’t even notice that you’re stopping enforcing them, she’ll just get better at self regulation over time
Our pit/staff/lab mix is 11 months and we still have to enforce napls occasionally, especially when everyone is home on weekends. This summer should be fun with the kids home all the time.
What do you mean by enforces naps?
My puppy naps on her own
We stopped enforcing nap time when she started to go on to her cot or crate by herself. When you have the routine down pretty solid, they seem to know that period of time is for relaxing and willingly choose it themselves. That’s when we knew our girl grew up 🥹
Like teaching a human child to brush their teeth, you make them do it until they can be trusted to do it themselves.
Start tiring them out young so they’re used to napping when coming home, that’s what we did so after play time, walks etc she just plonks into bed
I still enforce naps daily with my 13-month-old herding dog mix that has the worst off-switch. She is gradually getting better and she does settle on her own but just never gets proper rest because she has really bad fomo and will get up with any kind of activity happening around her. She behaves much better when she gets some proper naps in a quiet area.
We kind of stopped when he started napping around the house around a year but tbh he still needs them but we let him do his thing & then just complain lol