My Grey Stanley Is Very Restless At Night. How To Get Him To Sleep Bet

[Guest StanleyCDog]

My grey Stanley who we have had for 6 weeks now does not sleep throught the night very well. While we are dealing with trying to get his diet situated, even while he has been on chicken and rice the past 3 weeks he still does not sleep very soundly and moves around a lot during the night. My last dog slept in bed with us and never woke us up. Stanley sleeps in our room next to our bed in his own comfy bed. Any suggestions on how to get him to settle in more/maybe sleep later than 5am? Needlless to say, we are suffering from sleep deprivation and need to figure out if we can make him more comfortable! Any suggestions appreciated!

[Time4ANap]

3 weeks is a long time on chicken and rice. There is not much nutrition in the bland diet, so hunger could be contributing to his overall restlessness. I would try to get him back on some real food ASAP if at all possible. (I have been away and haven't read other threads if you have posted about the diet issue.)

 

A tired dog will sleep. Tiring him out with a long walk in the evening or some play in the back yard (if he will play) will go a long way to making him sleep. Routine is everything with retired racers, so getting him into the routine of a long walk in the evening or several shorter walks a day will help him burn off that energy that is keeping him up. Eventually he will get into a routine, and may even be the first one in the house to go to bed in the evenings.

[bradymom]

Stanley may be getting too hot also or cold depending on the room temperature. Brady is a furnace and will move from couch to couch or dog bed to dog bed during the night.

[juliemac]

Ditto on what has been said above. My Baby was restless for a LONG time after she came home with me, but then I realized she was my first grey that had really raced ... things changed when I could get her to do a quick zoomie in the yard in the evening. My Riley needs a snack before bedtime (he doesn't like to eat early in the morning), or else he will ensure that we're BOTH up & moving half the night.

 

good luck!

[MattB]

Charlie took a long time to settle at night time - not sure if this was just a settling in phase to a new routine - he'd wake us up a lot for the first few months after he arrived.

 

Lighter mornings seemed to get both our hounds up early - is your room dark? We now have a compromise that I get up with the hounds and give them their breakfast then back to bed for a couple of hours before morning walk.