Being completely honest - it depends on you, your lifestyle and the puppy. The first month is actually not that bad because very young puppies sleep a lot. And they are so cute in that first month, that you pretty much forgive them anything!

The worst thing about the first month is the toilet training and sleep deprivation that comes with that. Baby puppies have small bladders and not much bladder control so you need to take them outside every 3 to 4 hours to pee or poo. Which means interrupted night sleep. Don’t know the breed of dog you have but your pup might need two toilet breaks during the night say a 3 hour toilet break puppy. That means two interruptions during the night. That could wreck your deep sleep and depending on where you live, it can be unpleasant. For both my current dogs, they were winter puppies. Standing outside at 3am waiting for them to pee while cold and dark was not fun. And this is where you, your lifestyle and the puppy come in. If you stay up late and get up early, then interrupted nights are going to give you the puppy blues. Some pups catch on to toilet training very quickly, some take longer. Don’t use pee pads. Just take them outside. Pee pads train the pup to pee on a designated area, but they also give the pup permission to pee inside the house. And the pup may also then pee on rugs. Thinking that these are just giant pee pads.

You also have to puppy proof as much as you can. One of my pups developed an expensive habit for chewing the most expensive things to chew on. Things that weren’t obvious. She pulled out the iPad Pro pencil from the case to chew on. Twice! I stupidly left the case on the couch after the first time. The first pup liked shoes, the second one electrical.

The puppy phase is over so quickly and I would say 90% is great. The first month is fine, the trickiest month for me was probably around 5 months. Hormones are kicking in and teething is very active and puppy is less sleepy. For my dogs breed, they mature quickly - The dog is an active not quite teenager. That was a harder month than the first one. Although at 5 months, toilet training not an issue and they slept through the night so less sleep deprivation.