We have had our puppy for 5 weeks now and we are struggling with house training. I am at home with her all day and let her out regularly so there are no daytime accidents.
At night she sleeps in a crate with the door open to a playpen. Every morning she has pooed in the pen and nearly always wee as well.
I have tried keeping the crate door shut but she is happy just to do her business in there - especially on the vetbed!
At what age can I expect her to be able to go through the night?
Do you have any other suggestions re night time care ?

ps we keep her in a pen at night to keep her apart from our older dog

How big is the crate?  If it's big enough that she can toilet in one end and sleep at the other, this could be the problem.  If so, is there a way you can make it temporarily smaller, or borrow a smaller crate from somewhere?

Do you get up during the night to let her out? If she's going to be confined to her crate you'll have to get up several times to let her out, or she'll have no option but to soil her crate - they don't mean a pup can contain themselves for longer; the theory is that they get distressed trying to get away from their bed so you hear them and wake to take them out. Is her crate in your room so you can hear her when she wakes?

I find that a late-night garden trip at about 11pm, then another garden trip at about 6 am is enough lack of sleep for me! I'm happier to clean up in the morning. :)

If you keep reinforcing that she should go outside and not inside then eventually the soiling overnight will stop as she grows older - unfortunately noone can say when that will be as every pup is different. The only sure fire way of making sure they dont go overnight is to let them out a few times during the night too.
I didnt usually let pups of mine out during the night after a couple of weeks of getting them as i found i would be standing there for hours with the puppy huddled between my legs as it didnt like the cold and dark.
I did as Jeangenie said and let them out at 11.30 ish and then 6.30 ish and just cleaned the mess up. It has never taken long for them to learn what is expected.

thanks for the replies, especially the crate theory - I hadn't realised that the noise of the puppy waking was supposed to wake me up !! Must admit getting up in the middle of the night when it's -5c is not appealing!  I think the differnce is that I have had previous dogs in the summer months when they tend to be outside alot more - the kitchen door is firmly closed on cold days in Winter.
I will persist and hope that she gets the idea eventually.

well its either- get up in the night and let her out- or get up in morning to a wee and maybe a poo?
This will last for a while but not forever, me personally would get OH to get up in night to take her out!
oops!

The trouble is there are no short cuts. Or rather there's only one shortcut - get up and go outside regardless of the temperature out there! Otherwise you could be forever training this pup to be reliable at night. Agree with chris though that it should be a shared responsibility and your OH could take turns out there in the wee small hours.

As Chrisjack says - either resign yourself to clearing up mess in the morning, or have umpteen broken nights. (I know which is my choice! ;)) Your pup'll get there in the end, just as children stop needing nappies eventually. :)

I clean up in teh morning, and they still get housetrained, usually by 6 months day and night

Our 4 month old puppy is not clean at night so we get up twice and lift him.  Initially he would bark and bark but only did this once he had toileted which is why we decided to anticipate his barking and not react to his barking.  He has a crate but is not shut in.  My question is how can we train him to bark before he does his business rather than after !

Hello. Soon all the behaviourists on this forum will let you know what they think you should do.
I would just like to say that by lifting your puppy you are teaching it to get up and pee. If your pup is happy in the crate you should aim towards having the door shut at night, so that he would learn to ask out if he needs. I suspect that if he is warm and comfy enough in his crate he won’t ask out.
Also make sure he’s let out about 11 last thing at night and out by 7 ish in the morning.

Thank you for replying.  We have found that if we don’t time it properly then he doesn’t hold it and will toilet inside and then bark and howl. Most of the time we do get the timing right and we lift and carry him outside as he does not want to go out but with a command he wee’s and poo’s within a few seconds and are back in bed and settled within 2-3 minutes which is easier to cope with than having a barking and therefore wide awake puppy and having to clean up in the middle of the night.  On hindsight we perhaps should have shut him in the crate from the beginning but everything we read said don’t do that straight away but having spoken to other puppy owners they have shut them in from day 1 and for some it works, others they have mess in the crate, there is a lot of conflicting advice! We know he will get there eventually, its just that after 7 weeks of sleep deprivation we want to make sure we are not doing anything that is prolonging the agony!

I’m surprised you are still getting up twice in the night to take the puppy out to toilet or he can’t hold on during the night. What breed is he and when is his last meal of the day? Does he pee and poo both times he is taken out and is this every night?

You say you've had her for 5 weeks, but how old is she at the moment?    I do not contribute to keeping a young puppy in a small crate - until the puppy knows you will be letting her out of the crate regularly (during the night) she will just empty, and in a small area, be forced to lie in it!!

How long it will be to be clean all night will depend on the individual puppy.   My Whippet came to us at 9 weeks and to be honest, could have held right through although I didn't force her to do this.   I'd feed the last meal by around 5 pm and she went into her crate by around 10.30 pm, having been taken outside to empty immediately before going into her crate.    I got up by around 3 am, actually anticipating her 'need' so she didn't think she yelled and I came!!  We were up to feed by 7 am and during that time, she was clean.   Frankie came to us at 4 months and at first, as he'd come from a kennel situation (breeder) I gave him the benefit of the doubt and took him out once overnight too.   Very quickly it was obvious that being that bit older, he was physically able to hold.

To be honest, unless your puppy (again age is relevant) isn't sleeping through, once awake, the first thing will be to empty.   I'd have her in with you in her crate (shut in) to make getting up and out 'easier'.   It should mean you are not greeted with a mess every morning.

Once into a routine, she should learn that you'll be attending to her toiletting needs, and so start to hold (within reason).   Young puppies should be given the opportunity to empty roughly every 2 hours during the daytime, unless still taking a nap, and as they are not eating/drinking overnight, only need one outing - assuming the stools are normal!

ps   casting my eye back on your answers - what works for one dog, may not for another, especially re crating which is why you see conflicting info.    There's NO POINT shutting a puppy in a crate if it's going to become hysterical being in there - and so more likely to mess!!

He wee’s at 1 am and then wee’s and poo’s at 3.30am and then wakes at 5.30 am to let us know he has done a wee on the floor. He is a 16 week old cocker spaniel (show)

We have had him 7 weeks, he is on 3 meals a day 7am, 1pm and 6.30pm

I would be puttung o your alarm if he is that regular and take him out. Unfortunately early rising isn't rare with pups but they usually adjust to your routine as the grow anymore tyan not hilding throigg the night. He is still very much a baby and from my dogs I wouldnt expect him to go all night. Just be as calm and boring as u can when taking him out to reduce any excitement .I do crate but don't expect that to make puppy trained any faster .if they need to go they need to go regardless of size of their bed .7 weeks isn't actually very long although I agree it feels like it.  Breeds and dogs vary .my gsds  have been brilliant one of my flat coats was a right pain for months and my toy breed was so fussy as to if she could be bothered if the weather wasn't right even during the day .

Yes we do set alarms and this is all working fine, he goes out does his business and straight back to bed with no fuss all within 5 minutes so that is not the problem, I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t prolonging the exercise any longer than was necessary.  We could maybe change his last meal time to earlier but his poo’s are not at a set time and sometimes his last poo is at 7pm, sometimes its 10 pm so I can’ see that that will make much difference.  We’ll get there.  Apart from this he is the perfect puppy so we can’t complain, we would just like a bit more uninterrupted sleep.

Sounds like u are doing pretty well . It will happen ,honest:)

I don't expect any dog to be fully house trained until around 8 months of age.  I always think that people will happily accept a child wetting itself at 3 years of age, yet expect too much of a puppy.

The joys of puppies I'm afraid!  Some go through the night quickly, some take a long time and the rest are anywhere in between.  I've known pups be fully housetrained and through the night by 12 weeks - some even younger - and one of mine took over a year to really, finally be fully clean.  But she was clean overnight much earlier than the other two, as I recall.

Keep setting alarms, and gradually set them a little further on and you'll win in the end.

My Sheltie at 3YEARS  still occasionally cannot be bothered to go outside

I fully agree all puppies are different and "get there" at different times. It is possible to help though, by having places where the puppy will actually make an effort to hold, whether or not they are housetrained yet.

Crate is one of such places, as instinctively the puppy would want to avoid toileting in confined spaces. (I'm only guessing but think this may have something to do with the need to keep safe, the ability to put a distance away from the smelly mess which can attract predators).

But, you have to be very vigilant as this reluctance to mess would only work for a short time, eventually the puppy will toilet, confined spaces or not. And once the puppy has toileted in the crate "successfully", its reluctance to mess there will disappear. So whenever the puppy is crated you need to take it out extremely regularly and watch its every move there, to prevent the accident from occurring. This means not locking the crate when you are unable to watch it (like at night).

Sounds a lot of effort but it's worth it, our puppies may not become reliably housetrained until they are 8 months old or even older, but they would never mess in their crate or in the car - it really helps with cleaning!