sleep problems

Question
Hi there,
We have an 8 yr old black lab, an 11 year old lab mix and a 1 year old lab/husky(?-shelter's best determination). Lately we have been sorting through sleep issues. My husband has sleep apnia and is being treated for it. Our three dogs all slept in our room but we decided a couple of months ago that we needed to change that because they would get restless at the least noise and wake us up, not to mention that the room would be filled with hair and extra body heat. The puppy still sleeps in a large crate and has not problems at night being in the living room as long as another dog is with him. The 8 year old wouldn't stop barking at night to get into the room unless we had the oldest dog out with her. We found a natural stress formula that seemed to help her also. However, the oldest dog can't hear as well as he did and he is not handling the separation from my husband at night. He makes it until about 3 am and then cries incessantly. We both work and are desperate for some sleep. It seems like we are at a no win situation--they disturb us if they are in the room but also if they are not. We love them and don't know what to do! Any advice you have would be helpful. We kept the oldest dog with us at night because we felt it was a lot for him to adjust to a different sleep location after so many years but we couldn't get the female to stop barking until we left him with her. A last ditch attempt to get some sleep caused us to bring him back into the bedroom last night and as you can guess--the 8 year old barked around midnight.
thanks for the input!
Sue

Answer
If there was an easy solution, you would have thought of it and not asked me.  Where they sleep can be a huge issue with dogs.  Logically they should all be happy together out in the living room.  Dogs can be even less logical than people.  In addition, I am not sure it is natural for dogs to sleep all night.  I think their natural pattern is on and off for much shorter periods all day and night.  Just as they nap a lot in the day time, I think they tend to have active periods at night.  Unlike people, they can go right back to sleep after disturbing us.  

Perhaps more activity later in the evening along with taking up the water at 7 PM might help.  One other thing that could help is a bed time feeding.  A big meal to sleep off might extend their sleeping period.  I can't promise it wouldn't bring on 3 AM bowel movements.