Enforcement of naps/sleep when our pup is both good and bad at it?

Crate Training

I am so tired (honestly not totally from sleep deprivation, just mental fixation overload which I feel isn’t talked about as much - every waking moment in the last 4 days has basically involved the pup) so I apologize for the poor wording. 11 week old corgi puppy, this is .. end of day 4 as I type this? I have a few questions so a little background

We got her Wednesday and honestly she’s been fairly easy - we live on a busy city block, and she hasn’t really seemed scared or overwhelmed by anything and we’ve had everything from dozens of people a day say hi as they walk past, sirens, dogs, etc - she’s been a champ.

She also has kinda taken to her crate. She walks herself in there occasionally to chill and she goes in there for when she knows she’s getting breakfast and dinner. I wanted to focus on building the crate positivity so we only had her there for overnight sleeps.

She tends to nap pretty decently in her pen (the crate is inside) - not nearly the 1/2 recommended ratio but maybe 4-5 hours of naps she’ll go to her pen to sleep, she does not care if we’re in sight or not.

When it comes time to sleep for night time, she can be in the crate for short bursts. As I’m typing this she made it 45 minutes (she is stupidly overtired today we energized her too much) and then whined to come out. When I let her out she fairly quickly just settles down next to me. When she’s basically asleep I pop her back in the crate and sneak away. I think if I left her outside the crate she would sleep for much much longer more assuredly. I’ve been afraid to enforce crate sleep through whining because we live in an apartment and neighbors will hate us late at night.

I guess what this garbled mess is asking is

  1. I have to enforce naps more, do you think that enforcement will carry over to nighttime sleep? I think we can resist her whines way easier if it’s during the day

  2. i don’t know what to think about her being tired as hell, popping out of the crate just to be next to me to sleep

  3. is it too early to worry about this, is 4 days enough acclimation to start getting serious about regulating her sleep as opposed to being more chill about it

Posted May 24, 2026, 2:54 AM UTC

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