The sun has barely cracked the horizon. The world is quiet. Everyone is asleep. Well… everyone except for one super alert puppy. Whining, crying, sniffing, playing, stomping, barking, AWAKE!
A puppy is super cute and hard to ignore. It is perhaps a little easier to say no or grouch at a puppy if they disrupt our precious sleep.
But what you do when you are at your wit’s end? Here are the tips and strategies I use to manage and train my dogs when a new puppy wakes me up—top tips on how to train a puppy to wake up later.
Your Dog Sleeps A Lot During the Day
There might be a number of reasons for this but your puppy might be sleeping a lot throughout the day. This could be due to the fact that you are a single dog owners and aren’t at home for several hours during the day, or you might not be doing enough to engage with your dog.
If your dog sleeps a lot during the day then naturally it won’t sleep as much in the night. If possible, try and engage with your dog a bit more during the day so that he isn’t as bored.
Why Do Puppies Wake So Early In The Morning?
Sleep is essential for growing puppies’ development, and young puppies sleep more overall than adult dogs.
That sleep is vital for supporting learning, memory formation and even the formation of their immune system.
But, frustratingly, they don’t tend to be much good at saving up their kip for night time.
Besides getting up for nocturnal toilet trips, they’re also earlier to get “up for the day” – often hours before we’d usually consider getting up ourselves.
And such short-lived, broken night time sleep can really take its toll on new puppy parents.
Puppy owners report that tiredness caused night time disturbances and early mornings has a negative effect on their physical and mental health, puts strain on family relationships, and sours their general mood.
Reasons Why Puppies Are Early Risers
Why do so many puppies rise and shine so early?
There are a few reasons, and luckily, most of them are linked to their stage of life.
Which is to say, your puppy will grow out of them in time!
This is a fancy way of saying that they don’t do all of their sleeping for a 24 hour period in one go.
In fact this is true of most baby animals, including humans.
Sleeping mostly at night isn’t an innate habit of many newborns – it’s actually something that lots of species have to learn and adjust to as infants.
Luckily, puppies pick it up quicker than human babies. But there is an element of just having to wait, while their body clock learns what’s what.
This is probably the most overwhelmingly common reason for puppies needing to get up in the morning.
Their bladder capacity is small, and it needs emptying regularly.
Puppies often wake up two or three times in the night needing to pee, but there comes a point when they’ve slept enough, that they struggle to get back to sleep again.
And so they’re up for the day, even though the day hasn’t officially started yet, by any decent standards.
As there bladder capacity matures, their need for an early morning toilet excursion diminishes.
Did your puppy pee at 4am, but now they’re up again at 5am?
Perhaps something they’re not used to sleeping through has disturbed them.
This could be the sun coming up, if they’re used to sleeping in darkness, the hum and whirr of your central heating coming to life, or the sound of your neighbors setting off for work.
Anything which is unfamiliar to your puppy when they arrive home with you can startle them too far out of sleep for them to settle back down.
Many of these noises will eventually become background noise to your puppy, and disturb their sleep less.
Newborn puppies have tiny tummies. They can’t even hold enough milk inside them to survive a whole night without running out of calories.
So at first they rely on having lots of small meals per day, including several at night.
As they grow up, and wean off mom, they can start having fewer, larger meals.
But some patient dams (mother dogs) will let their puppies go on nursing right up until the point they leave for their new home.
So, some puppies wake up early because they’re used to getting a pre-breakfast snack.
This habit can be unlearned, and we’ll come back to that in a moment.
FAQ
How do I stop my puppy waking at 5am?
- Ensure a ‘Bedtime’ Environment. …
- Set a Sleep Routine. …
- Make Sure Your Dog Isn’t Sick. …
- Bathroom Break. …
- Crate Training. …
- Ensure a Proper Diet. …
- Tire your Dog Out.
Why does my puppy wake up at 5am?
How do I get my puppy to sleep later in the morning?
How do I get my puppy to sleep past 5 30?