How much sleep does a puppy need
A puppy under 4 months needs roughly 18 to 20 hours of sleep in every 24. An adult dog needs 12 to 14.
That number explains more puppy behaviour than any other single fact, and almost nobody is told it.
The 6pm monster
If your puppy turns into a biting, barking, furniture-destroying tornado at roughly the same time each evening, the cause is almost never too little exercise. It is too little sleep.
An overtired puppy looks exactly like an overtired toddler. More stimulation makes it worse, not better. Every extra game at that point pushes the puppy further past the point where it can settle on its own.
The counter-intuitive fix is a nap, not a walk.
What a normal day looks like
A 10-week-old puppy typically manages 45 to 90 minutes awake before needing to sleep again. That is the whole cycle: wake, toilet, eat or play, toilet, sleep.
By 6 months the awake window stretches to 2 or 3 hours. By a year it is close to an adult pattern.
Puppies do not put themselves to bed. Given a choice between sleeping and following you around the kitchen, they will follow you around the kitchen until they fall over.
How to enforce a nap without a fight
- Watch the clock, not the puppy. Set a timer for 60 minutes from waking. When it goes, start the nap routine whether or not the puppy looks tired.
- Toilet break first. Always, or the nap ends in 10 minutes.
- Move to the nap place. A crate or a pen in a quiet room. Not the middle of the kitchen with the family moving around.
- Give something to chew or lick. Chewing and licking lower arousal and bridge the gap between wired and asleep. A stuffed rubber toy or a lick mat works.
- Dim it and cover the crate. Less to look at, less to stay awake for.
- Leave. Sitting next to the crate keeps the puppy watching you.
The first few attempts involve complaining. That is normal, and it shortens quickly if the routine is the same every time.
Signs your puppy is overtired, not naughty
- Biting gets harder and faster rather than softer
- Zoomies with no off switch
- Ignoring cues it knew perfectly an hour ago
- Grabbing at clothing and lead
- Barking at nothing
- Refusing food it normally loves
All 6 of those are usually solved by a dark room and 90 minutes.
Night sleep
Most puppies sleep through the night by 12 to 16 weeks. Before that, expect 1 or 2 toilet trips. A rough guide to bladder capacity is the puppy's age in months plus 1, in hours, so a 2-month-old manages about 3 hours.
Set an alarm and take the puppy out before it wakes and cries. That way the toilet trip is not something crying earns.
Keep night trips boring. No talking, no play, no light if you can manage it. Out, toilet, back to bed.
Where puppies should sleep
For the first weeks, in your bedroom. It is not a habit you are stuck with, and it makes the transition from sleeping in a pile of littermates far less frightening. Move the crate a metre further towards the final destination every few nights.
Leaving an 8-week-old alone in a kitchen on night 1 is the fastest route to a dog that panics when left alone at 8 months.
When to see a vet
Sleeping more than the ranges above alongside low energy when awake, or a sudden change from a settled pattern to a restless one, is worth a check. Pain, parasites and low blood sugar in very small breeds all show up as sleep changes first.
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