Do you have an early waking puppy?

One of the most common questions we get about new puppies is “How do I get my puppy to sleep through the night? It always wakes up around 3:30 in the morning wanting to play.”

There are many reasons why a puppy won’t sleep completely through the night, but we find the most common issue is that people are allowing the puppy to go to sleep straight after it has had dinner around 6:00.

The challenge with this is that the puppy will normally happily sleep until you go to bed at 10:30 or so, you will wake the puppy up and take it for its mandatory toilet break before it goes to bed for the rest of the night.

The potential problem with this is that the puppy has now already had 4 to 5 hours sleep and you are now expecting it to go back to bed and sleep for another 8 or 9 hours.  Although a puppy will generally sleep for 16 to 18 hours a day, this obviously won’t be in one stretch.

Consider altering the puppy’s body clock by keeping it active or awake until you are ready to go to bed. The puppy’s sleeping pattern will then be more in sync with yours, and it will be more likely to sleep through until 7 am.

Be mindful that several other factors may be contributing to the problem.

• Is the sun coming into the puppy’s room and waking it up?
• Is it a quiet room where puppy is sleeping, or are there neighbours or birds nearby that might be waking the puppy?
• Is the puppy’s room too big?

Dogs are den animals, so the smaller the area they have to sleep in, the safer and more secure they feel.

Would crate training help?

See our information on crate training and more tips for your first night with puppy.