# How long did you enforce naptime in the crate?



## wendii (Nov 22, 2015)

Sadie is now a little over 4 months and doing great. She sometimes clearly needs to be "put to bed" (when she gets overtired and really nutty at night) but I'd like to start having her nap on her bed in my office while I work during the day.

We've been very consistent with a crate training schedule, which was entirely necessary for housetraining as well as allowing us to get any work done during the day when she was younger. But now that she's a bit older, she can play with her toys and entertain herself for a little while. Sometimes. 

My question is - how do I teach her to nap outside her crate? She does GREAT in the crate, settles down and naps easily almost every time we put her in (assuming she's eaten, been walked, etc.). Just now I had her out for 2.5 hours and she was just standing there staring at me, like "please put me to bed!" So I told her to kennel up and she immediately went in and laid down to nap. I LOVE this and want to let her know her crate is always an option and a safe space, but I also would love to have her out more during the day when it's feasible.


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## AngelCoopersMom (Oct 15, 2015)

We never did nap in the crate. He's asleep on the bathroom floor right now. He goes in the crate when we are at work, leave the house, and at night when we can't supervise.


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## wendii (Nov 22, 2015)

AngelCoopersMom said:


> We never did nap in the crate. He's asleep on the bathroom floor right now. He goes in the crate when we are at work, leave the house, and at night when we can't supervise.


Thanks for your reply. We needed to do crate napping because we work from home. When we leave for errands or just time out of the house, she's also in the crate, but that's maybe only 2-3 times a week.

Wondering if there's anyone on the board with similar circumstances and how they handled the transition to having the pup out more and more during the day.


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## AngelCoopersMom (Oct 15, 2015)

Here he is in the bathroom. Lol. Doesn't look comfortable but apparently it is to him! He will be 18 weeks tomorrow.


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## rabernet (Feb 24, 2015)

With Noah - he just seemed to grow into it. We kept saying "Noah - if you'd just go ahead and nap out here, you wouldn't have to go in your crate". And eventually with age, he started to figure it out. I want to say around 4 or 5 months old.


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## Rkaymay (May 12, 2014)

With Link I'm letting him choose - if he falls asleep outside the crate, fine, but if he's acting sleepy and can't settle (or if Zelda won't leave him alone), I will crate him to nap.

Zelda needed "forced" naps until she was six months old. One day, she just fell asleep outside her crate. Up until that point, I had continued to crate her when she acted tired. After that, some days she needed crated to nap, and other days she could fall asleep outside her crate. At about 18 months old, we were able to get rid of the crate completely (my mom needed to borrow it, and Z didn't use it anymore unless she wanted to).


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## msheidiann (Jul 17, 2015)

Lucy needs forced naps still. If I am home alone she will find a place to crash, but not when my 4 year old is home (he's in preschool 3 mornings a week). If my son IS home, she's crated at about 8, 1, and 4 for 1-1.5 hours. She can't seem to settle when we are watching TV at night, so she's usually in bed by about 8. I hope she learns to chill on the couch or floor while we are watching TV, or going about our day.


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## wendii (Nov 22, 2015)

It's so funny - but the day I posted this, she settled down by the front door on the door mat while we watched a movie until 11pm. She's done it a couple more times since! Right now I'm sitting on the couch using my laptop (which was NOT an option when she was little, she would have been all over the laptop haha) and she's hanging out in the corner. Progress! She still needs to go in the crate for a "real" solid nap but I'm pretty happy she's starting to figure it out!


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## Rilelen (Jan 11, 2015)

Abby is one year old. Sometimes (like when there is AMAZING SNOW OUTSIDE AND WE DO NOT WANT TO STOP BEING OUTSIDE EVER) she still gets so wound up that she won't nap even though she needs to. That's when it's time for a peanut butter kong, which always turns into a nap somehow. 

But more seriously we didn't crate, but we did have a pen in the kitchen that essentially functioned as one. Mandatory nap periods ended gradually as Abby got more freedom to roam the house. I would say by 5 months we were no longer confining Abby to the kitchen (even when we were gone from the house), and with that ended the mandatory naptimes. 

As I mentioned earlier, I do still occasionally notice that she is getting so excited and wound up that she can't settle herself in for a nap; when she gets overaroused like that, I just give her a bone to chew on or a kong....after a few licks, she usually passes out. She just needs help hitting the "pause" button now and then!


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## anamcouto (Aug 15, 2015)

Just start adding a command to the act of going to nap? And I would just start to leave the crate door open. Ella has her own bedroom, so we just tell her to "go NaiNai" which means go to your room, she's now 10 months and usually obeys and seems like now we are being able to get the command and she just stays there without us closing the babygate we used to just lose the gate and she would settle down. Don't see why it can't be done with a crate if that's your choice


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## wendii (Nov 22, 2015)

Well, sure enough, here's Sadie proving me wrong by trying to nap at our front door. :roflmao:

She doesn't actually fall asleep but she lays there, sometimes with her eyes closed now - and one eye open if anyone moves around. She's figuring it out!


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## Lilliam (Apr 28, 2010)

I still crate Emma and she's fifteen months. She's SO BUSY and SO CURIOUS that she needs to be told it's time to sleep. 
She gets over excited and *needs* to sleep but refuses to allow herself to fall asleep so I just tell her to go night night and she goes in the crate and passes out almost instantly. I don't close the door. 
If she's out of the crate there is just too much STUFF happening and she might miss out on something. Even if it's just the cat moving from point a to point b.


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## RamonaQ (Mar 7, 2016)

Wow, I find this thread really interesting because my 11 week old Ramona only wants to sleep on the couch. I have to wait until she falls asleep and then put her in her crate. Even then she wakes up, runs back over to the couch and passes out. How do I get her to be the kind of puppy that CHOOSES to go to her crate to sleep?!


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## moyamuhle (Oct 15, 2015)

I'm so happy to read this thread! We were given a fairly small crate that worked for the first few months but I decided it was just too small for Dela now. I can see that I need to get her a full sized crate because she really seems like she can't settle without her "cave" (she is 6 months old). She does eventually, of course but thinking of getting a larger one so she can have "her space" again.


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## rabernet (Feb 24, 2015)

moyamuhle said:


> I'm so happy to read this thread! We were given a fairly small crate that worked for the first few months but I decided it was just too small for Dela now. I can see that I need to get her a full sized crate because she really seems like she can't settle without her "cave" (she is 6 months old). She does eventually, of course but thinking of getting a larger one so she can have "her space" again.


We sized up twice with Noah, and 11 months, we stopped crating him. We did not feel comfortable giving him free reign at night or when we were running errands before that age. 

He still gets into a little trouble now (tearing up napkins his daddy leaves on the coffee table), but not much more than that, and most times naps on the couch all day while we're at work (that's where he is when I come home at lunch to potty him, and when I get off work). 

As a little puppy - he definitely had to be put to bed in his crate to take naps, he had no off switch. He eventually started to figure out he could nap outside of his crate when we were home and in the evenings.

Now the cat uses all three crates (they are stacked now) as her little personal escape - they all have cat beds in them now! LOL


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

Duster, at 13 weeks, is still crated in my office while I'm working. I've tried him on the dog bed, but he keeps creeping out and gets tangled in the computer wires. Sometimes in the evening, if I have a small amount of work to do in the office, I put him on a leash and let him sleep in the dog bed. That way, if he moves, I can put him back.

I can see that it will probably be a while before he's ready to stay outside the crate during the day, while I'm working. I don't trust him out of my sight, and it's a nuisance when he unplugs the computer.

I've installed a special cushion for him next to my armchair in the living room, and he's learning to stay on it when it's time for us to relax. I still have to keep him on leash in the evenings, otherwise he leaps around and off the furniture, which isn't good for his joints.


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## Lilliam (Apr 28, 2010)

RamonaQ said:


> Wow, I find this thread really interesting because my 11 week old Ramona only wants to sleep on the couch. I have to wait until she falls asleep and then put her in her crate. Even then she wakes up, runs back over to the couch and passes out. How do I get her to be the kind of puppy that CHOOSES to go to her crate to sleep?!


Make her crate the best place in the universe. Feed her there. Give her a kong there. Deliver treats in the crate. But her favourite chew toys there. Sprinkle the crate with kibble.
My dogs always get their food in the crate. From day one.


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