Pupdate: Lucia's Sleep Schedule - Abby Saylor Armbruster

Welcome back to the blog! We’ve now had our little Lucia for two months and I can’t remember life before her. I wanted to do another update for you guys sharing her progress on bell training and housebreaking, how her personality has developed, the status of her sleep schedule + more!

Our little lady is now 5 months old, weighs 25 lbs and is getting her adult teeth in!

Sleep is the main thing I wanted to talk about because it’s what we’ve been struggling with the most. As you know from my previous Pupdate posts, Lucia slept like a DREAM for the first couple weeks or so that we had her. I think that’s because she was extra exhausted at the end of each day because she was so young. With time, she started waking up at 1 or 3 o’clock in the morning every single night barking her head off and wouldn’t stop no matter what, even if she let her do it for 30 minutes or more before going to get her. We’d take her out to pee, give her back her kong and she’d wake up again at 6 a.m. Neither Justin nor I had this kind of sleep schedule with any of our dogs growing up, so I don’t know if we just got lucky back then or if Lucia is a special case.

I will say though, she’s gotten WAY better the last few weeks! Now she only wakes up once at 6 (if she is waking up earlier than that, I guess we just aren’t hearing her). 6 a.m. is obviously earlier than we’d like to get up on the weekends, so if you have any advice or tips that work for your own dog, please let me know! Just so you know, she goes to bed happily each night (with peanut butter in her Kong toy) in her exercise pin with her open crate and bed inside of it in our office.

Justin has been BEGGING for Lucia to sleep with us and I decided to give it a try Saturday night. She slept great with us on top of the covers at the end of our bed, but I didn’t get the best sleep just because it was out of the norm for me. I’d never slept with a dog so it was definitely a new experience. I told Justin I’d be okay with doing it once a week on Saturdays, and maybe she’ll sleep longer with us so we can get more snooze time in!

She’s completely housebroken and the bell training works like a charm. She rings it on her own anytime she needs or wants to go outside, and it’s pretty loud so we can hear throughout the house, within reason. We haven’t had any accidents since around the first couple weeks we had her, including in her pin that she sleeps in and stays in while we’re at work!

It’s so fun getting to know her and her personality more every single day. The first few weeks that you have a puppy feels like a new house guest you’re unfamiliar with, but now she’s a full-fledged family member. She’s such a cuddler and we’re so happy about it! I was worried she’d grow out of it as she got older, but she definitely hasn’t!

We’re focusing on socializing her as well. She LOVES other dogs, but we’ve come to find out that not many other dogs love her back and we have no clue why! She’s not an alpha whatsoever and she crouches low with her ears down and her tail wagging when she meets other dogs, but some still want nothing to do with her — LOL, poor thing! Some of our families’ dogs like her and some don’t, but we’re hoping that changes as she gets older and they get used to her. Updates to come on this!

Some of Lucia’s favorites:

Treats! Chew bones, puppy teething rings, peanut butter in her Kong, etc.
Going on walks — she does the cutest, happiest little prance when we get the leash out
Going into stores and meeting people — she wants to be friends with everyone!
Meeting other dogs and *trying* to play with them
Sleeping on her blanket on the lounge section of the couch — yes, I caved and now I let her on the couch, but only on the blanket! She jumped in my lap one day when I was sitting there and fell asleep, and I was a changed woman after that 😂… I know, I know, I’m WEAK!

That’s it for this little update! Like I said, if you guys have any tips for helping your puppy sleep longer through the night, please let me know! Thanks for much for reading & you can check out my previous Puppy posts below.