6 month old puppy wont sleep through the night/pretending to be hungry.
Hi everyone who comes across this. I am desperate for some advice for my 6 month old black lab puppy who will not sleep through the night without waking up 3 or 4 times through the night to eat. This has been going on for over a month now and it is down right frustrating. Before this started happening she slept through the night in crate and would sleep in until 6-7am depending on what time we would wake up. We would always wake her up to feed her and now she wakes us up to feed her. the rolls have completely switched. We now feed her at 4am(because at that point she has persistently barked for 2-3 hours) and we feed her dinner @ 4-5pm when we get home from work. And a snack at 9-10pm before her we put her down for bed(we just recently tried and stopped since she was just getting smart and it wasn't stopping the consistent barking). Every time she wakes up we get up to take her to the bathroom and most of the time she wont go and will just run to where she knows where her food lives. We instantly take her back to her crate and two hours go by and the same thing happens until about 4am where we have had enough we just get up to feed her because she will not stop. We have tried everything it seems. We've given her a snack before bed, even in the middle of night because we thought she was really hungry, we are giving her more food about a scoop more at breakfast and dinner, We have given her favorite bone that she likes to chew on in case she is bored during the night time, we have taken her out potty every time. She is outside with her two older brothers all day long until it gets dark and we bring them in and they play for hours so it isn't like she isn't getting her energy out or isn't getting any play time with other dogs or with us. We put her in her crate while eating dinner and let her out to play some more. That leads us to bed time and she goes to bed and wakes up within 4 hours and that's when the night of her waking up and barking gets started. We also have a white noise fan that we put on when she sleeps to help drown out outside noises/ or in house noises. My hubs and I are at a lost. we have no idea what to do, and how to stop this. Its like having a new born baby except we don't. its frustrating since she used to sleep like an angel with no problems at all and now this. Our thought process has us believing that because we got up every time she barked she now thinks ok if I bark enough they will come and get me, and feed me. We have tried letting her barking it out but she is so persistent with the barking she will bark for 4-5 hours without skipping a beat.Has anybody else gone through this? if so, please help. we are seriously desperate. Thank you!
**UPDATE: Thank you for all of your suggestions/advice. It is greatly appreciated! Last night, instead of letting her out to go potty every time(which was just making it worse and reinforcing bad behavior as I learned yesterday) little miss Saylor, of course barked once at 3am- and I went in to scold her, I stood right out her door to see if she would bark again... she did. So, I went back in and scolded her and walked back out... she continued to bark and I rolled up some newspaper and gave her one boop letting her know that every time she barked in her crate she would get booped. She quickly learned it(since she is very, very smart and learns things quickly) anyways, she stopped barking and slept until WE got her up to eat. We will continue the obedience on our part as it has only made her a better dog, already!! We totally created the monster, not her, and we have to squish that monster and be better obedient dog parents! Thank you again.