Pet Help

My new baby has been home with us for two nights now, boy I’d forgotten what it was like. I was having serious flashbacks to when my kids were babies and I’d have to get up to them a dozen times per night. The good and bad side of this now being those same kids that used to keep me up all night are now in turn the ones getting up to the pup.(Though they were still waking me up to tell me they’d got her settled down again).

The first night, we put her to bed with her blanket and a lot of newspaper on the floor. Within two minutes of closing the door behind me she started crying. I tried to explain to the kids that this was normal and the best thing we could do was to let her go she would eventually stop. They thought I was a horrible person. ‘Specially after they kept offering to let her sleep in their rooms and I kept saying no. It finally sunk in that until she is toilet trained – she sleeps in the laundry and that’s all there is to it.

I went to bed and put a pillow over my head. My children took it upon themselves to go in every now and then and settle her down. I think they went to half a dozen times through the night, but I could be wrong.

The second night it was just her and me (my kids were elsewhere) so I knew it would be a different story. A few hours before bed time I went and put on an old jumper so it would have a bit of my scent on it. When bed time came I took her outside to do her business, put her blanket and the jumper I’d been wearing on the floor, put her down and walked out.

She cried for a bit and then stopped. I’d left plenty of water and a few little puppy biscuits there for her so I’m guessing she found that. About two hours later I heard her practicing her howling so I got up to her and had a brief chat, but made a point of not cuddling her or staying too long. I snuck back out again and then did not hear from her until morning.

After praising her, and going back outside so she could perform her morning rituals I figured that it was still very early and rather chilly to boot so the two of us snuck back into my bedroom where she cuddled up and got another couple of hours sleep (I won’t be telling my kids that).

Here’s hoping we have a repeat if not better performance tonight.