How long does your puppy sleep in a day?

[murphys]

Our gal is 12 weeks today. I realize she is still very young, but she sleeps a lot.

She wakes and has breakfast and goes back to sleep. when she wakes about 9 will play about a bit with our other dog and then sleep for the rest of the morning until lunch at 12. She will sleep again until about 3-4 where she will be in 'little devil' mode . We walk her about 4-5pm. We get back and she is fed again, and then sleeps again. I wake her for a wee when I go to bed and then she sleeps until about 6am. So I say she is sleeping about 20 out of 24 hours in the day. I should add that when she is awake she is very very busy .

Just wondering if this is normal for her age. probably being a precious mum I know

It's normal. Enjoy it.

The books say 18-20 hours at that age.

Mine never read the books

It's normal, depending on the individual dog and breed.

Just like with human babies, sleep helps them process what they've learned while they're awake and also gives their body the chance to use it's energy for growth.

Definitely make the most of it - it's can be a bit of a shock when they first start being awake for longer.

Mine are 4 and 18 months I reckon on a normal day they are not awake for much more than four hours.....

On a good day, our 4.5 month old will sleep all morning, after eating. Then play. Then sleep again. We walk her in the eve atm and that's about an hour by the time she's shouted at everything, played with dogs, etc. Back home, more grub, bit of playing, snoozing in garden then she will voluntarily sleep from about 10.30 til 8am.

Oh yeah there's clicker work in there too.

Eric as young pup didn't sleep as much as he does now at six months or maybe it was that he'd have short naps whereas now he likes longer snoozes. He always wanted to be in the midst of everything whereas now he's pretty secure and happy to ignore most things.