How Pets Affect Your Sleep: Understanding the Impact of Furry Companions on Rest

Most people end up here after a few rough nights: you’ve started waking more often, feeling less restored, or you’ve noticed the pattern only happens when the dog sprawls across your legs or the cat starts patrolling at 3 am. The question is simple, but the answer isn’t always comfortable: is bed-sharing with a pet helping you settle, or quietly chipping away at your sleep?

Pets can soothe and steady a household at night, but they also bring movement, noise, allergens and germs into the one place you’re meant to be most still. The aim is to weigh the trade-offs and choose a set-up that protects your sleep while keeping your animal safe and settled.

How dogs and cats sleep (and why it can clash with humans)

Human sleep is usually one long block, built from repeating cycles that include deeper slow-wave sleep and REM. Dogs and cats, by contrast, tend to sleep in shorter bouts and wake more easily, which is useful for animals tuned to their surroundings.

As a rough guide, many adult dogs sleep around 12–14 hours in a day, with puppies and older dogs often needing more. Cats commonly sleep 12–16 hours and are often most active around dawn and dusk, a pattern called crepuscular activity.¹

In a shared bed, that lighter, more reactive sleep can show up as:

• position changes and paw-steps that pull you towards lighter sleep
• early-morning wake-ups that become a routine
• noises (snoring, grooming, collar jingles) that seem small until they repeat

When sleeping with a pet can feel better

There’s a reason so many people do it. A calm animal nearby can make the bedroom feel steadier: warmth at your feet, a familiar weight against your back, a steadying presence in the dark. For some people, that reduces bedtime alertness and makes it easier to fall asleep.

It’s also common for people to feel safer with a dog in the room, especially if the household is otherwise quiet and a little watchful at night.

What the research says about sleep quality

Evidence is mixed, largely because people and pets vary so much. A large 2024 study found that adults who reported co-sleeping with pets also reported poorer sleep characteristics, including poorer perceived sleep quality and greater insomnia severity.²

Earlier work suggests a useful middle ground: having a dog in the bedroom may be compatible with decent sleep efficiency for many people, while having the dog on the bed can slightly reduce it.³

In practice, the deciding factor is usually simple. If you’re waking more, taking longer to fall back asleep, or feeling unrefreshed most mornings, the set-up isn’t working—no matter how comforting it looks.

Common ways pets disturb sleep

Most sleep disruption comes from small, repeated events rather than one dramatic wake-up.

• Movement: shifting positions, scratching, jumping on and off the bed.
• Noise: snoring, licking/grooming, nails on the floorboards.
• Timing mismatch: early morning feeding expectations, crepuscular cat activity.
• Space: you end up curling around the animal, rather than relaxing into your own posture.

Allergies, hygiene and infection risk

For people with asthma or allergies, the bedroom can become a concentrated zone for dander and fur, making night-time symptoms worse. Even without a diagnosed allergy, irritation and congestion can creep in over time.

There’s also the quieter question of germs and parasites. Public health guidance focuses on simple prevention: hand hygiene, keeping pets well, and being extra cautious if someone in the home is higher risk (young children, pregnancy, older age, or weakened immunity).^{4, 5, 6}

If anyone in your home is immunocompromised, has open wounds, or is prone to infection, it’s worth being conservative about bed-sharing and focusing on clean, separate sleeping spots nearby.^{5, 7}

A practical compromise: same room, different sleeping surfaces

For many households, the best sleep comes from keeping pets close, but not on the human mattress. That can preserve the companionship while reducing movement transfer, allergen build-up on pillows, and midnight negotiations over space.^{3, 7}

Set up a pet sleep station that actually gets used

• Place a dedicated pet bed close to your bed, within sight and reach.
• Choose a surface that suits their style (nesting sides for curlers; flatter mats for sprawlers).
• Make it predictable: same spot, same bedtime cues, same reward pattern.

Build night-time behaviour that supports sleep

• Evening wind-down: gentle play or a walk earlier, then quiet time before bed.
• Remove the accidental rewards: if they wake you for attention, keep interactions brief and boring.
• Morning boundaries: feed after you’re up, not as payment for waking you.

When to change the plan (quick checks)

Consider moving your pet off the bed—at least as a trial for 2 weeks—if any of these are true:

• you’re waking more than once most nights, or struggling to get back to sleep
• your allergy or asthma symptoms are worse overnight
• your pet is scratching, licking, snoring loudly, or pacing
• anyone in the home is pregnant, immunocompromised, or medically fragile^{4, 5, 6}

If your pet’s sleep suddenly changes—restlessness, more waking, new snoring, frequent scratching—treat it as information. Pain, skin irritation, anxiety, and medical problems often announce themselves at night, when the house finally goes quiet.

About sleep trackers and pet monitors

Wearables and pet trackers can be useful for spotting patterns (a consistent 2 am wake-up; sleep that improves when the dog uses their own bed). They’re less reliable for diagnosing problems, but they can give you a calmer way to test changes without guessing.

Final thoughts

At night, a household settles into its true habits. Sometimes a pet on the bed is a steadying weight that helps you drift. Sometimes it’s a sequence of small disturbances that slowly erodes sleep. The kinder option, for both species, is the one that lets everyone rest deeply—often close together, but not necessarily tangled in the same sheets.

References

1. Sleep Foundation: How Much Do Cats Sleep?
2. Scientific Reports (2024): Co-sleeping with pets, stress, and sleep in a nationally-representative sample of United States adults
3. Time (2017) summarising Mayo Clinic Proceedings study on dogs in the bedroom vs on the bed
4. NSW Health: Staying safe around pets and animals
5. CDC: Healthy Pets, Healthy People – Clinical resources (zoonotic risk and prevention)
6. healthdirect Australia: Keeping healthy and safe with pets and other animals
7. Sleep Foundation: Sleeping with Pets (benefits, disruptions, risk considerations)
8. PubMed: Zoonotic Risks of Sleeping with Pets
9. ABC News (Australia): The benefits and risks of sleeping next to your dog