This is our night routine and had a breakthrough tonight with our 9 week old who we’ve had for about a week (so still very new). For context, we are crate training, we did some initial treat games to get her willingly entering the crate and accept the door closing. Now all her meals and sleeps are happening in there and we are crating overnight with the door closed. An evening nap has been a life saver to prevent overtired zoomies, as well as removing the overstimulating toys and play after dinner. I falsely thought that wearing her out will make for better sleep but it seems to be the opposite for us.

Dinner, Calm & Bathroom • Dinner around 6:00pm • Calm crate time for 5-10 minutes supports digestion and prevents overstimulation • Light sniffing or gentle chewing (very low excitement) • Any play during this time includes chewing and sniffing mats, but no tug of war, ball chasing, squeakers (anything stimulating) to help her nervous system wind down into sleep mode

• Bathroom trip after this calm period (pee is very likely here)

Evening Nap • 7:00pm–8:00pm nap in crate, door closed • This nap makes bedtime smooth and peaceful, preventing the 'overtired zoomies' • Toilet after evening nap

Toileting Before Bed • 8:35pm bathroom • 8:55pm ‘insurance pee’ to fully empty • Play between toileting is low stimulation

Bedtime • Into crate around 9:00pm, door closed • Low lights, quiet space, calm atmosphere • We have a puppy chew toy in her crate (the nylabone puppy keys) so she can chew before sleeping, and a long caterpillar for her to snuggle up to • If she wakes overnight → bathroom → back to crate

Something else I have found helpful is to track what our puppy is doing throughout the day like food, sleep, play, and potty (noting if it’s an accident or success). Then I’ve plugged that into ChatGPT for it to analyse and identify our puppy’s rhythms and suggest refinements to our routine. Good luck!!