Can Puppies Get Days & Nights Mixed Up? (8 Interesting Facts)
Does it seem like your puppy sleeps all day and is awake all night?
Is it possible your puppy has got confused between day and night and has somehow switched its body clock?
1. Biorhythms
Biological rhythm or circadian rhythm describes how a body goes through being awake, asleep, and other functions.
There is more than one type of biorhythm, but the circadian rhythm covers the 24-hour cycle of sleeping and waking.
Your internal clock (located in the hypothalamus in your brain) sets your daily pattern in response to environmental clues like light levels.
The human need for sleep depends on your age, with newborns needing 14-17 hours, teenagers 8-10 hours, and adults 7-9 in a 24-hour cycle.
Human infants need daytime naps, whereas most adults opt for a long sleep at night. There are exceptions, with some people opting for a daytime nap and a long overnight sleep.
Some people need more or less rest than the average, and some have sleep disorders.
Your puppy has a similar circadian rhythm to you in that it is active during the day (with power naps) and sleepy overnight (when mature).
The average adult dog needs 12-14 hours’ sleep, and the larger breeds may sleep 18 hours of every 24.
Puppies need the most amount of sleep – potentially 18 hours in every day.
Your puppy’s internal clock uses light to decide when it is day and night, but your puppy will keel over for a power nap in daytime hours.
2. Why Is Your Puppy Awake at Night?
Your puppy has a lot to learn, and it takes time for your puppy to sleep through the night.
The reasons why your puppy may be awake at night include:
- Loneliness and anxiety.
- Hunger or thirst.
- Need for a bathroom break.
- Too cold or too hot.
- Illness.
- Not comfortable.
- Not tired.
A puppy that wakes during the night isn’t confused about the day or night but has unmet needs or has not yet adjusted to a long overnight sleep.
Loneliness and Anxiety
It is a massive change for a puppy to leave the warm comfort of its litter to live alone in a strange household.
It is usual for a puppy to cry through the night, to begin with, to express its sadness.
You can help your puppy adjust to sleeping overnight without its littermates by positioning its bed or crate in the same room as you and then gradually moving its sleeping area to your preferred location.
Overnight Crying
Until you learn to recognize your puppy’s language, you need to get up when it is crying overnight to find the cause.
It may be loneliness, in which case a few gentle words of reassurance are all that is necessary.
But your puppy may need a bathroom break or a drink. A young puppy needs to pee every four hours until its bladder matures.
The idea is to tend to your puppy’s needs without the fuss and resist the urge to play.
The process is like training a human baby to sleep through the night, and as your puppy matures, it will settle into an acceptable nighttime routine.
3. Is Your Puppy an Owl rather than a Lark?
Some people are more active late into the night, whereas others are up like larks in the morning.
Is it possible that your puppy is naturally more active at night?
Your puppy will adjust to your schedule with time and patience.
Your puppy’s natural cycle of activity and sleep is a period of intense activity in the morning, a long nap, more activity in the evening, and another long nap.
Your puppy will initially wake up frequently at night. However, your puppy also sleeps in small naps during the daytime with extra energy for daytime play sessions.
While your puppy is young, you need to establish a routine that suits you both.
This may be more difficult if you work shifts but work out a routine for the puppy with regular meals and exercise sessions to set the foundation for a quiet sleep session at night.
4. Should You Keep Your Puppy Awake During the Day?
Your puppy sleeps more than an adult dog.
Adult dogs sleep around 17 hours in every 24-hour cycle. It is natural for your puppy to sleep during the day because it is busy growing a bigger body.
Rather than trying to keep your puppy awake all day in the mistaken belief that it will sleep all night, it is best to schedule exercise sessions.
A reasonably active play session with a bathroom break about half an hour before you want to go to bed will ensure your puppy starts the night ready to sleep.
A comfortable, slightly tired puppy will sleep longer.
Of course, you may prefer to stay up later than your puppy, which means when you get ready for bed, you may confuse your puppy into thinking it is time to get up.
If you are active overnight, your puppy will likely keep you company by synching its busy times with yours.
5. What Can You Do to Help Your Puppy Understand Day and Night?
The essential way your puppy learns the difference between day and night is the routine of feeding, exercise, interaction with its humans, and sleeping.
The best routine for your puppy depends on your routine.
For domestic harmony, your puppy should sleep mainly when left alone and when you are sleeping.
If you work from home, establishing a routine for your puppy probably doesn’t seem like that big a deal. If your puppy needs a bathroom break, you can drop everything and let it out.
But even when you have a supremely flexible schedule, your puppy should have a sensible routine.
The ideal routine for your puppy revolves around mealtimes, playtimes, bathroom breaks, and nap times.
Initially, your puppy needs four to five small meals a day which will drop to two as your puppy grows.
Your puppy will soon learn that most activities happen during daylight hours and will adjust to having a long sleep overnight to fit in with the rhythm of your household.
By giving your puppy a reliable daily structure, you help it understand your day and night expectations.
6. Dialing Down the Lights and Noise
At night you want your puppy to understand that it is time to sleep.
You can encourage your puppy to feel sleepy by putting it to bed in a room with low light levels and little noise.
Your puppy sleeps differently from a human baby because it can sleep in an “alert” setting. This more alert sleeping is light and allows your puppy to respond to sudden noises or the opportunity to get up and play.
Your puppy needs two types of sleep – light napping and a deeper, more relaxed sleep that restores and renews.
Your puppy can only sleep deeply when it feels safe and secure.
You can help your puppy feel safe by providing a puppy bed or cushion that allows it to nest in a hollow.
Providing a secure sleeping area like a dog crate with a cover stimulates a secure den and promotes deeper sleep for your puppy, safe from potential attacks.
Your puppy, like a human baby, may find it difficult to sleep at night if it can hear interesting activities like people moving around and lights switching on and off.
7. Will Your Puppy Outgrow Waking at Night?
Most puppies will mature into a dog that sleeps through the night in synch with your sleeping patterns.
But you can expect your dog to alert you if it hears a noise, needs to go for a bathroom break, or feels unwell.
Generally, you can expect that as your puppy matures, you will have fewer issues overnight than when your puppy arrives in your home.
8. Are Bad Dreams Keeping Your Puppy Awake?
Puppies can and do dream; you can often tell by the twitching and noises the puppy makes while asleep.
Dreaming and the occasional nightmare are part of healthy sleep for your puppy.
Dreams for your puppy work to sort out memories and experiences, and this activity doesn’t keep your puppy awake.
A human child may fight sleep because they can worry about bad dreams.
Your puppy, although bright and intelligent, doesn’t have the same thought processes. If your puppy is restless and refuses to settle down to sleep at night, there will be a reason.
Your puppy has an excellent sense of hearing and smell.
If you have a pest infestation that you haven’t noticed, your restless pup may be trying to tell you that it needs to hunt down a mouse.
Or, your puppy may hear noises outside that it wants to investigate.
And So, To Bed
Your puppy is not confused about day and night, but your puppy may need time to adjust to your routine of waking and sleeping.
As your puppy matures, most nighttime issues will naturally resolve.
You can help your puppy by establishing a routine that meets your puppy’s needs for regular exercise, feeding, and bathroom breaks.
Your puppy will soon adjust to taking the sleep it needs simultaneously as you and when you are too busy to play.