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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
-Charles Dickens (he must have had a puppy!)

That Dickens quote really sums up what it’s like having a puppy. There’s nothing more exciting than bringing your new puppy home, playing with him and kissing him on his cute little nose… it’s the best. And there’s nothing more horrifying than realizing that puppies seem to pee and poo constantly and finding out that they have zero respect for your need to sleep at night… it’s the worst.

Chihuahua

I’ll break it to you as gently as I can. If you have a new puppy, you’re not going to get a solid 8 hours of sleep for a while. If you accept that fact, it’ll be easier to do the necessary training to teach your puppy to sleep through the night.

Most puppies aren’t able to sleep through the night when they first come home to their new owners, but almost all puppies sleep through the night by the time they’re 16 weeks old. With proper training and scheduling, you should be able to teach your puppy to do it even earlier.

Sometimes even adult dogs are unable to sleep through the night without waking up for a potty trip when they first come to a new home. The stress of coming to a new environment and adjusting to a new schedule and possibly a new food can wreak havoc on your new dog’s digestive system. The instructions that follow will work for him, too. The good news is that if he’s 6 months or older, it’ll probably be just a few nights of adjustment before you’ll be able to get a full night’s sleep.

Below you’ll learn the basics for helping your puppy sleep through the night, but if you’re having serious overnight problems with your pup or you want to be sure you’re doing everything you can to help your puppy have a peaceful night, you’ll love my e-book, Puppy Sleep Training – The Exhausted Puppy Owner’s Nighttime Survival Guide. It’ll teach you everything you need to know so you can be sure you’re setting your puppy up for sleeping success!

Where Should Your Puppy Sleep?

This training will work best if your puppy is in your bedroom so you know what he’s up to. He’ll also be more likely to settle in and sleep if he’s in the same room with you instead of alone in a new, unfamiliar environment.

If you aren’t willing or able to have your puppy in your room at night, you can do this training with him in another room. If you do this, you might try leaving music, a fan, or a white noise machine on, since the sound may help to soothe and relax him. You won’t be able to hear the dog if he starts to fidget or fuss when he needs to go potty, so you’ll need to be extra responsible about getting in there to take him out to potty at regular intervals.

Regardless of where you decide to have your puppy sleep long-term, I STRONGLY recommend that you sleep near your pup for at least the first few nights after bringing him home. The adjustment of going from sleeping with his momma and littermates to suddenly sleeping alone in a new environment can be stressful for your puppy, and even just a few nights with some company will help your pup to feel more comfortable. This will make your whole sleep training program go a lot more smoothly (and maybe even more quickly!). If you prefer not to have your pup in your bedroom for even a few nights, you can camp out next to him in another area of the house… just crash on the couch or break out the sleeping bag!

You’ll most likely have your puppy sleeping in his crate overnight, so along with this article, also read “Acclimating Your Puppy to His Crate.” If necessary, you can get additional help from my articles on what to do if your dog barks in his crate or goes potty in his crate.

If you don’t have a crate for your puppy yet, this Life Stages crate is a great choice, since it has a divider that will allow you to give your pup more space as he grows.

If you’re doing indoor potty training, your puppy can sleep in his confinement area with his bed and access to his potty area. If you don’t want him to be by himself in another area of the house, you can crate him in your bedroom overnight. You shouldn’t create an additional indoor potty area for him in your bedroom unless you plan to have one there long-term, so using the crate overnight and his confinement zone with potty area during the day works well for many puppy owners.

An exercise pen is a good option for your puppy’s confinement area. Click here to buy an exercise pen for your pup from Amazon with free shipping!

Preparing Your Puppy for Bedtime

What you do with your dog in the evening will have a big impact on how well he’ll sleep (and how well YOU’LL sleep) at night. Puppies sleep a lot, so he’ll probably try to snooze for much of the evening. If you allow this to happen, of course, he’ll wake up refreshed and ready to rock and roll at bedtime or in the middle of the night. Don’t let your dog sleep too much in the evening; run around in the yard with him, play with him, have your friends come over to visit him and keep him busy. We want him to be good and tired by the time bedtime rolls around.

Long-haired dog

Your dog shouldn’t have food or water before going to bed, either, for obvious reasons. If he goes to bed with a full belly and bladder, you’re pretty much guaranteed a rough night. Generally, it’s best to avoid giving a dog food or water for 3 hours before bedtime. In rare instances, a puppy needs to have access to food and water very frequently due to medical issues. This is most common with small-breed puppies. If you have any concern that this may be the case with your puppy, please talk to your vet before setting up your dog’s feeding schedule.

Have everything you’ll need for a potty trip set up and readily accessible before you go to bed so you won’t have to scramble around looking for it in the middle of the night. Have something to wear (slippers and robe, shoes and jacket, etc.), your puppy’s leash if you’ll be using it, a flashlight if you need it, poo pickup bags if you’ll need them. When you wake up later, you’ll be glad everything’s ready to go.

Be sure to give your puppy a few chances to empty out during the evening and make sure the very last thing you do before going to bed is take him out to potty, even if he’s asleep and you have to wake him to do it.

Your Puppy’s Overnight Potty Trip

Overnight potty trips are a little different from potty trips during the day. During the day, you play with your puppy and fuss over him after he relieves himself. If you do that at night, you’ll have big problems, since your puppy will start waking you up just to have a party! Overnight potty trips are strictly business. Take him directly to his potty area and give him a couple of minutes to go. When he goes, calmly tell him he’s good, take him back inside, put him in his crate and go back to bed.

Some dogs, especially young puppies, are so sleepy when you take them out that they just lay down in the potty area and try to go back to sleep. This doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t need to go potty; he’s just so sleepy he hasn’t noticed yet that he needs to go potty. If your dog does this, encourage him to move around a bit. You can pick him up and put him back on his feet if you need to… whatever it takes to get him to wake up and get down to business.

When you’re up with your puppy in the middle of the night, avoid talking much to him, playing with him, taking him for a fun walk, or giving him treats, food, water or a chew bone. If he gets to do cool stuff when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he’ll start waking you because he wants some attention or a midnight snack. We want him to learn that nighttime is for sleeping and nothing fun happens when he wakes up in the middle of the night.

Overnight Scheduling for Your Puppy

Anticipating and preparing for your dog’s need to go potty in the middle of the night is the key to training him to sleep though the night as quickly as possible. Most puppy owners just go to sleep at night with their fingers crossed, hoping the dog will be okay until morning. Not a good plan. He’ll likely either have an accident in his crate or start barking and crying in the middle of the night to go potty. When he starts barking, his half-asleep, groggy owner stumbles around in the dark looking for his slippers and MAYBE gets the puppy out for a potty trip before it’s too late.

Aside from the obvious problems with that plan, there’s the really big problem: Your dog learns he can wake you up by yipping and yowling. Once he learns he has control of whether and when you sleep or wake up, he’ll likely wake you up earlier and more often. When you plan his nighttime schedule properly and in advance, you’ll be taking control and you’ll be able to make wake-up times later and less frequent. A much better plan!

The way to take control of overnight potty times is to set your alarm to wake you up in the middle of the night, whether the little guy wakes up or not. We want to beat him to the punch, waking him before he’s so uncomfortable that he wakes up and starts to fuss. This way, he never gets into the habit of making noise to wake you.

At first, you’ll probably need to set your alarm to go off a few times at night, depending on your puppy’s age at the time you’re starting his program. If you start him when he’s 7-9 weeks old, it’ll probably need to be every 2 hours; from 9-14 weeks, every 3 hours; 14 weeks and up, every 4 hours. These are general guidelines, of course, and you may find that your puppy needs to go out more or less frequently.

If you’ve already been through a few hellish nights with your puppy, you probably have some idea how long he can hold it – so you can base your scheduling on that. If your puppy has been waking up screaming every 4 hours, wake him up every 3 or 3 1/2 hours. The goal is to catch him before his need to go becomes so critical that he starts barking and howling.

Now that you’ve got your dog on a schedule of waking up at intervals during the night, you’re going to start to push it so he sleeps longer. This is where the program starts to pay off: Since you’ve taken control of the nighttime schedule, you can adjust the wake-up times and work toward the holy grail of puppy training… sleeping through the night.

Sleeping puppy

Once you’ve been able to wake your puppy up and take him out to potty on schedule with no barking, howling or accidents in the middle of the night for three consecutive nights, you can move on by extending the time between potty trips by 30 minutes. So if you’ve been waking your dog up at 1:00, 3:00 and 5:00, you’ll now start waking him at 1:30, 4:00 and 6:30. After another three good nights, you’ll move all 3 potty trips ahead by 30 minutes again.

Keep moving the potty trips ahead until the last potty trip coincides with your wake-up time. Congratulations – you’re now down to two potty trips instead of three! And if you keep pushing ahead by 30 minutes at a time, you’ll soon be down to one, then NONE!

What if Your Puppy Barks or Cries Overnight?

Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find that your puppy is so knocked out by the excitement of coming to his new home, he’ll sleep like a rock. In other cases, you won’t be so lucky. If your puppy is making noise in his crate when you first put him in, it’s likely he’s just unhappy about being closed in there, since all of this is new to him. You’ll find help for this problem in Acclimating Your Dog to his Crate and What to Do When Your Dog Barks in His Crate.

If your puppy starts barking, howling or whining in the middle of the night, there’s a good chance he needs to go potty, so take him out for a quick potty trip as outlined above – even if it isn’t his scheduled time to go. Although we don’t want your puppy to get into the habit of thinking he can wake you up as often and as early as he likes by barking and crying, we need to play it safe – so he should get a chance to relieve himself any time he gets noisy. Don’t ignore his crying if it occurs spontaneously in the middle of the night, or you’ll run the risk of forcing him to go potty in his crate and starting him on the path to habitually soiling his crate. This will mess up your housebreaking program and make a lot more work for you in the long run, so get up and get his little butt out for a potty trip!

Nighttime with a new puppy can be challenging, but following the above suggestions will make things a lot easier. It’s normal to have some good nights and some bad nights in the beginning, so try not to get frustrated or discouraged. Some ups and downs are to be expected when there’s a new baby in the house, and this is a TEMPORARY puppy issue, not something you’ll need to deal with for long… so hang in there!

Purchase Supplies Related to This Article

Snuggle Puppy Sleep Toy

Some pups find it soothing to have some company while they sleep. This sleep toy has a heartbeat and warmer… it may just become your pup’s new best friend!

Puppy Sleep Training E-Book

If your pup is making nighttime a nightmare, it’s time to buy my Puppy Sleep Training e-book! It’ll teach you everything you need to know to help your pup to sleep through the night without crying or accidents.

Midwest Life Stages Crate

This is a good all-purpose crate that’s an especially good choice for young puppies, since it comes with a divider that allows you to expand the crate as your puppy grows so it’s always just the right size.

Exercise Pen w/ Walk-Through Gate

This exercise pen has a walk-through gate and comes in several heights (if your dog’s a climber, get a tall one!). Can be used in multiple configurations as a pen, a room divider or connected to a second pen to create a large play area.

White Noise Machine

A white noise machine is great for calming puppies overnight and when they’re crated. It might even help YOU sleep better, too!

Head Lamp

A head lamp can be a real life-saver when you’re taking your pup out for potty trips in the dark. You can see what your pup’s doing and keep your hands free to hold the leash and pick up poo!