6.5 month mini Aussie won’t stop whining through the night.
Hi all! We have a 6.5 month mini Aussie pup who up until 2 weeks ago would sleep in his crate from 10:30pm to 7:30am no problem. We put him in my office on the main floor with a white noise machine and blackout curtains, we sleep upstairs above the room he’s in. Last week it started with him waking up and whining at 5am or 6am. If we walk on the floor he stops temporarily, I then made sure he isn’t whining, let him out to go pee, which he never seems to really need to then put him back in his crate. Because I know it’s not an immediate bathroom need, I’ve tried waiting him out but he’s gone a solid 45min until he hears footsteps on the floor again.
Just this past week it’s now escalated to him waking up and whining 3-4 times throughout the night. Causing us to get very little sleep, we don’t want to give in and let him out since I feel it’s just re-enforcing the whining but I don’t want to let him whine the entire night either. It does seem like demand whining/barking since as soon as he hears steps he stops but I don’t know the solution. Sometimes me just getting up and using the bathroom stops him long enough that he’ll go back to sleep without us going down to him.
I know if I let him out of the crate and just free roam to sleep on the floor or the couch he won’t whine and he’ll sleep through the night (he doesn’t get into anything so far) but I don’t want to do that because I worry he won’t settle in the crate at all after that. We used to crate him for his naps during the day but since he’s started settling on his own and being such a good boy we haven’t been for the past couple months.
Also his crate has plenty of room for him to stretch out and get comfy so I don’t think that’s it. Is this just a phase? Running on low sleep fumes!