A wonderful, amazing thing has happened. After almost two weeks of waking up two, or even three times a night to let Forest out, the little poop machine only had to do his business once Wednesday night. Trust me, this is a big deal.
Little dogs come with teeny tiny bladders. Last week Nick was preparing for his half triathlon and needed to sleep, and this week he was out of town on business. So I became Queen of Nighttime Potty Duty. Royal responsibilities included: being in constant possession of a plastic bag, standing on the lawn in my jammys in the middle of the night, and not sleeping for more than 3 consecutive hours. I didn’t know how long Forest could control his bladder, so during the first week I set an alarm to go off a couple times a night. But I’m a really light sleeper and woke up every time the puppy whimpered or started gnawing on the crate, so I stopped setting alarms. Most of the time Nick slept thru it all (the alarm, the subsequent cussing, Forest clawing at the crate door in excitement, going outside, coming in, gently shoving Forest back into the crate and more cussing as I adjusted the time on the next alarm) and didn’t even know I had gotten up.
The second week, I was sleep deprived but knew what to expect. Sleep for a few hours, let the puppy out, repeat. So when I woke up Wednesday night, checked the clock and saw that I had slept for over 3 hours without so much as a yelp from the crate, I panicked. The dog had to be dead, or sick, or I had finally slept thru his whining and he was now using a freshly laid turd as a pillow. But he was ok, better than ok, he was sleeping.
I was sure Wednesday night was a fluke, but Thursday night was the same way. I woke up several times to make sure Forest was ok and still in his crate (that’s another story) but most of the time he was fine and I could go back to sleep.
Now that Nick’s home, we can share potty duty, but I don’t have high expectations of getting more sleep. I’ll still wake up when it’s Nick’s turn to let Forest out, and my paranoid nature will probably rouse me from slumber a few times a night to check on the puppy. *Yawn* long live the Queen.
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