Has anyone got any tips to make a litter of 5 weeks old sleep all through the night, well most of it anyway?
Even since they had their mum with them, they've been early risers(4.30 ish) and as they've been getting weaned it isn't getting any better. Last night, I took down the whelping box and erected my usual "bigger" puppies cage and pen area. I've been up from 5.30 with several interruptions through the night. I can't go on with just 3-4 hours sleep, my neighbours may complain about the din (The pups can be pretty loud in full dawn chorus), my moods are getting worse!!! HELP. I even left food with them last night just incase they were peckish, took mum to the bedroom with me, so there was really very little noise to disturb them.

Besides mini-IV bags of whisky for each one, any other suggestions?

Can you not leave mum with them overnight? 5 weeks is awfully young to wean completely IMO, unless the bitch has dried up. I know its a big litter so perhaps mum has had enough, but if she is happy to stay with them I would let her for at least another week. If puppies are hungry they will be obeyed!!! Can you maybe give them their last feed later at night, say 11pm -12 after a play so they are tired? My Westie pups are quite civilised and they dont get me up til at least 6.30. which I can handle but when we had Lab puppies , I had the same problem if I weaned so early, all up at 5am and boy can 9 or 10 puppies make a noise, and we had next door neighbours then - I do sympathise. We moved!!

Apart (or as well) as leaving mum with them make dawn a little later by excluding the light and as much noise (birds) as possible to their room?

Christine

this is the reason I try to breed my litters in the winter, when there are shorter daylight hours, LOL! As puppies sleep whenever tired all through the day, there is nothiung to prevent them getting awake as soon as the first daylight comes on and the birdies start to sing.

I have found the only thing to do is see to them, and after a half hour or so they crash out again, and I find that it is too late to go back to bed! :( as yours are getting up earlier than my winter ones, with luck you can crawl back to bed!

Hiya everyone,

I tried putting mum back into the whelping box to shut them up but they don't want her, they just want to get out! Miranda is still very obliging to them but they just don't seem to get enough satisfaction from feeding from her alone now. Meals fill them up a lot better.

It's only the defiant 1-2 who seem to protest the loudest but boy, is it loud! :( 3 weeks now can't come quick enough!!!

Think it'll be a bottle of wine and earplugs for me tonight!

Hi, I didn't mean not to give them meals, but to let them have mum too at night , if it helped. :-) Do they have an outside run, or free access to the outside for part or all of the day so they can gallop about fairly freely to play? Could they be a bit bored maybe? Have they got lots of toys they can chew, roll around, fling about and fight over? I think the advice to block out as much light and sound as poss - if you haven't already is well worth a try. Here's hoping. ;-)

im very lucky with that problem-, i live on a gable end, also my stairs split on the landing and some go left to 2 rooms, the others right to another 2 rooms,so when mine hit the demanding screaming stage!!!!!!!!tough, cant hear a thing, neither can anyone else!!:D :D

I have the same problem with my 2 puppies, who are now 16 weeks old! Any time between 5.45 and 6.30 they start whining, then howling, then mum and dad (their mum and dad, not mine!) join in until there's a lovely dawn chorus! I know I should ignore them, as they would stop eventually if they realised it wouldn't work, but I think the neighbours might complain!!
Think I'll try and keep them up as late as possible tonight, and blocking the light out sounds like a fab idea. Must go and wake up puppies now, they're trying to settle down!
Liz

Hi Alfie, I am imagining your dawn chorus :D and thought I would let you know that my 8+ months old STILL wakes up and is ready to go out at 6am every morning ... not that I am wishing you an early rise every day!! LOL :D :D
Regards Gina.

Well, they managed 11pm-5.15am last night, so the dark circles under my eyes aren't so Panda-like! Babies can get out in the morning and evening to the garden, but now the weather's turned appalling, sod's law!!!

Can anyone help with worming now? I have just wormed them at 4 weeks and had worms from them, not a major amount though. Used Panacur 10%, is it possible wormer can make their motions loose? Could I do them again at 6 weeks, or is that too soon? Friend wormed her pups with Panacur at 3,5 & 7 weeks, but it recommends 3 & 7 on the box.

How have people found Pedigree Pup Advance? I am using this as a freebie through the breeder service, just wanted other's input. Usually use Nutro but can't turn a freebie down!

I have found the occasional pup a little loose by the time they have had their second or third days dose with the panacur. since reverting to worming at 3 1/2 seven, and then 12 weeks, no major problems. Had terible diarhoea and lack of weight gain when I wormed my third litter at 2 1/3, and then 5 and 8 weeks!

I havee found the pedigree advance as part of pups diet fine! I in fact mix several brands of Puppy food! The new owners get more to take home, and can choose which of them to feed. I always give one meat meal too, for those who prefer a more traditional/natural way of feeding, and like to use Literlac puppy milk!

Hi, I would definately stick to the dosing recommendations on the packet. I believe the life cycle of roundworms is 3 weeks from hatching to adult, so if you worm every 3 weeks 3 or 4 times, all adults present will be dealt with and any the growing baby worms cleared up over the next few wormings. Please treat Panacur with great respect and weigh the puppies carefully, to make sure they have the right dosage each. Its strong stuff!! :-) There has been quite a lot of posts on Panacur in the past here, and if you search "panacur" I expect they will all come up for you to read, if you want to. I have all this to come soon as I have a new litter, and will be using Strongid paste to worm them as Panacur does not seem to agree with my puppies.

For a few generations now I have used Panacur throughout the third part of the bitch's pregnancy. In a litter nearly five years ago I had a lot of problems and one of the things they tested for was worms in the faeces - didn't find any evidence which I was delighted with. (The problem some of the pups were having was that they were poisoning themselves by scraping out and eating the damp proofing from between the brickwork!)

I do find with Panacur when worming pups is that I have to use slightly less than they say to prevent the runs after the second/third doses.

Kerioak

I had the scales to hand when I wormed them last week, weights ranged from 1kg-3kg, so I measured it properly. I found the plastic doser given with the Panacur was useless, so I reverted to using a syringe, a lot easier to measure correctly. I was late getting them wormed because I ordered from a vet chemist by mail order and it took over a week to come otherwise it would have been 3 weeks of age for the first dosage.

I bought Nutro today for the babies, wow, what a difference in appetite to the Advance. They wanted second helpings whereas they semi-picked thru the Advance! Guess what will be going away with the puppy owners if it's not used up by then? I like Nutro for my dogs, think their breeder scheme stinks though. ;(

I feel the same about the Arden Grange scheme. I refuse to get involved with selling puppy food packs to new owners! Beta and Pedigree schemesare excellent as are Wafcol's and Skinners, the first two give you food to wean pups on too!

Yes, I got food from both Beta and Pedigree but Beta made them 'windy', Advance is ok, but even just having had a day of them on Nutro I can see a difference. Last time I had pups and gave out Nutro packs that I had to pay for, I caused such a stink about it, my money was refunded!!!!! Think the pack is better now but I still think it should be free with you having to give all the new owners names back to Nutro for them to follow-up with calls etc. Nutro say it's because they are such a small company they can't afford to do freebies!!!! I always imagined they were a large US corporation!!!!!

I quite like the nutro puppy packs and I do think they are good value for money, after all for your £4 you DO get 2kg food and loads more stuff! So cheaper than buying food by itself almost!
I phoned Nutro today and ordered 2 packs and they didnt ask me for any details of new owners, so i presume its left to the new owners to decide whether or not to register.
The Eukanube breeder scheme with send you 1kg for each puppy which isnt very much for large breeds i would have thought! And thats about all you get, although it is free - but wouldnt you think so after paying top whack for EUK anyway!

Louise

ps mine have been on nutro for 2 months now and we love it! Much better than Euk, Ped Advance etc.

Speaking from the other side of things- I've brought home a German Shepherd puppy on Saturday and the breeder supplied me with Eukabana's puppy pack including the 1kg bag of food which lasted me until yesterday- so 5 days:) You only get the food and a measuring cup though with it. I'm not surprised it's free- they're trying to get you hooked- I nearly fell through the floor when I went last week for my own bag (I was unaware that I'd get anything from the breeder) and found the 15kg bag to be £38.99!!!!! I bought the 3kg bag at £10.99- if I'd have bought Chappie which our vet recomends it would have cost £15.99 for the 15kg bag. I bought a 3kg as unsure yet whether to change her food!

Stacey x x x

Be careful changing from Eukanuba to another dog food, especially one that has a high percentage of wheat and animal by-products, as this will most likely cause severe tummy upset. It would be better to change to Nutro, Arden Grange or James Welbeloved. Arden Grange I find is a super dog food, and as a breeder you can buy the food a lot cheaper, this I think is better than the free puppy packs which you are paying for by paying a lot of money per bag of food!

when i had my gsd's my bitch once had a litter of 9 pups i didnt sleep for weeks,in the end we had to have do's and turns at who slept downstairs NIGHTDUTY!!!
if i were you id do the same,mind u i did love haveing them sorry chuck its something you have to do.....one things for sure you'll have a good night sleep when they all go....make the most of it you'll miss them all once they are homed!!!!

Hi Steph,

I didn't think this thread had anymore replies to it but thought I'd update you. Unfortunately, I'm on my 'Jack Jones' so I have to do all the puppy care etc....

The pups-bar one!!!- are all in their homes now and my little lad now gets to sleep on my bed along with his big sister. He is pretty good at sleeping now, just wakes me up around 5-ish biting my nose! ;) Pups eh, don't you luv 'em????????

Hi Lily,
Glad to hear you are getting some sleep now! My puppies were the 'Dawn chorus' lot who got earlier and earlier, eventually waking me up at 3 am, and starting mum and dad off as well!!
...that was until I took drastic action... well I actually took the easy way out- I now let them have the run of the kitchen at night, with their mum and dad, instead of their indoor kennel. So now peace reigns again!
Liz

Hi Liz,

I took a similar action and took down the puppy pen letting them have free access to the lounge, my carpet's never going to recover!!!!! :P

I did used to let them out to run around the garden and go back to bed, but some lovely neighbour came over to me and threatened to report me to the dog warden for the noise of puppies' barking..........:( Yes it must have been all of 10 decibels!!!!!

Anyway, it won't be until 2004 for the next litter and by then I will have won the lottery!