My sweet sleep through the night pup has disappeared and it is driving us all insane. Jethro used to sleep through the night on his own doing from about 2 1/2 months and on. Recently he's been whining for a potty break two to three hours before wake up time. This is fine because I know he is young and I never want to ignore his bladder needs. In the past he usually goes right back to sleep and would sleep in because he doesn't have a full bladder. Instead now he howls and whines for the entire remaining three hours until I get out of bed and feed him. I am so exhausted and so frustrated at this. I've tried everything, putting him to bed later and not going to him when he whines, but nothing is working to get him back on track. I used to put him down at 9, but he usually falls asleep around 8pm himself and I have to wake him up to go out and then put him to bed, which I've been pushing back to 9:30/10. This hasn't done anything to change his wake time, because he still gets up at 4:30 begging to pee and then whining for food until I feed him at 7. We did recently switch his food from one brand to another which feeds less a day because our previous brand had him eating 4 cups a day to maintain and he could never finish a meal. Now he eats 2 cups a day of a better quality food and has been scarfing it down every meal. It makes me feel like we aren't feeding him enough, despite his weight to age recommending feeding. I'm losing my mind and am so exhausted. Even worse when I get him up and feed him at 7, he usually hops up on the couch and falls asleep afterwards. I don't want to just fill his bowl and over feed him, but I'm at a loss as to how to fix his sleep schedule

Lynn, i don't know what you are currently feeding nor what you did feed nor how big Jethro is....but between 4 months and 8 months they require the most food. If you look at the bag there should be an increase at around this time and will continue until around 7-8 months. I fed both of my girls at this time frame 3 cups a day spread over 3 meals, so 1 cup each meal. My younger girl also wasn't fully potty trained, as in could hold it all night until around 6 months old. So I think it may be a combination of the two issues. he probably isn't getting enough to eat, my younger girl was the same and she still is but understands the routine, to be quiet until later in the morning. Feeding 3 times a day and increasing the food should help, it wont help with getting up to potty at 4 am, but should help in keeping him happy until you want to get up. So i would try that first, if still a problem, then I would freeze a kong with some yummy goodness mixed with some kibble and when you come back in, give it to him in his crate and see if that helps. I really believe he probably needs the 3 cups of food, their metabolism is very high at this age.

The same thing happened with our Lucy about a month ago, so at about 9 months old. All of a sudden she would whimper all night long, for hours and hours. When I realized it was behavioral and not because she had to go pee, we knew what we had to do. We moved her crate up to our bedroom the very next night and that solved the issue - everyone got a great night sleep!

Thanks for the suggestions, we upped his lunch to a cup and included a scrambled egg to hopefully give him a little extra protein and fill his belly to hopefully make him comfortable. Will continue with a cup per meal 3 times a day and see if that solves the issue. I have no problem with getting up to let him pee, that never bothers me, it's only when he whines for the rest of the time instead of going back to sleep or quietly playing. We shall see how the next few nights go before making the next change. From there I think a frozen Kong treat when he wakes up to pee would be the next step, we really don't want to put him in our room because he isn't allowed in there any other time. He actually prefers to sleep alone/in his crate and never had a problem until recently. I think increasing his food should solve it

We have recently had similar problems with our almost 5 month old. Some nights she will sleep right through without a noise and others she would be up at 3/4 am and wanting attention. I have found that the more stimulation (and exercise to a certain extent) we give her the night before the better she will sleep and less likely to bang on the door. We too don't allow her in our bedroom because I don't want her waking us up every time she moves around to change where she sleeps etc. Just my 2 cents.
Jethro is very cute by the way!