With the cute appearance of leopard geckos, it is common for clips and photographs of them to go viral on social media resulting in more and more people looking to add a pet leopard gecko to their family.
A number of leopard gecko videos and photographs have managed to go viral over the last couple of months and there are a large number of brand new leopard gecko owners out there reaching out with various questions about their new pet.
One of the more frequently asked questions that we have seen people asking time and time again is about sleeping leopard geckos due to some people not realizing just how much a leopard gecko will sleep each day or the random positions that leopard geckos sometimes choose to sleep in.
This can actually catch a large number of people new to keeping leopard gecko off-guard and it is common to see them reaching out and asking questions about leopard geckos sleeping.
There are usually three common questions about a sleeping leopard gecko that we see month in, month out from people who are new to owning their leopard gecko and we have decided to answer them all in this article.
Our hope is that we are going to be able to explain why your leopard gecko acts in this way and out table of contents below should make it as quick and easy as possible for you to navigate our article.
How Long Does A Leopard Gecko Sleep?
The average health, adult leopard gecko will sleep between twelve and thirteen hours per day but some leopard geckos can sleep for up to eighteen hours depending on their local temperature.
This is considered normal due to leopard gecko being a nocturnal reptile that prefers to sleep during the day when it is hot and be active during the night when it is cooler.
Many people are not aware of how long a leopard gecko will sleep each day and are often disappointed due to their leopard gecko sleeping while they are awake.
We would never recommend that you intentionally wake your sleeping leopard gecko just so you are able to play with it as your leopard gecko sleeps at these times for specific reasons and they have evolved to do this over thousands of years.
We have seen some leopard gecko owners report that they are able to tweak their heat lamps in their leopard geckos vivarium to change their leopard geckos sleeping patterns but we would never recommend that you do this.
Although this can technically work, it often takes a large amount of time and effort to keep tweaking the heat lamp settings for your pet leopard gecko and it is often just better for you to let your leopard gecko sleep when it wants to sleep.
Is It Normal For My Leopard Geckos To Sleep A Lot?
It is normal for leopard geckos to sleep for over half of the day with some leopard geckos choosing to sleep for even longer.
Leopard geckos definitely do sleep a lot but this is quite normal for reptiles, especially reptiles that are kept in captivity as they are safe and have no real predators that may be trying to hunt them so they let their guard down more often and sleep for longer.
One common thing that can cause your pet leopard gecko to sleep for longer than usual is overfeeding with this being very common with new leopard gecko owners as they fail to realize just how calorie-dense mealworms and other insects that leopard geckos love are.
Just like humans, after a large calorie-dense meal, most leopard geckos will often want a nap even if they have only been awake for an hour or two.
Although it is common for leopard geckos to sleep a lot, most people do want to maximize the amount of time that their pet leopard gecko is awake.
To do this, we often recommend that you try to avoid overfeeding your pet leopard gecko to reduce it wanting to take a nap.
On top of this, leopard geckos are insectivores so you should try to avoid even trying to feed your pet leopard gecko fruit and vegetables as most leopard geckos will not be interested in them and mealworms usually being the best option.
Why Do Leopard Geckos Sleep In Weird Positions?
Many leopard geckos sleep in very strange and weird positions for a number of different reasons. The most common cause of this is due to the leopard gecko choosing to sleep in these weird positions to maximize its exposure to the heat in its vivarium as it sleeps.
You have to realize that a leopard gecko is more flexible than a human too so something that looks uncomfortable to us, may not be uncomfortable for your pet leopard gecko.
This is definitely one of the quirks of keeping a pet leopard gecko, they really do love to stretch out in weird positions when they sleep and make stay in that weird position for the full twelve hours of their sleep without moving much at all.
We have seen some people try to adjust the heat lamp in their leopard geckos vivarium to try and remove the need for their pet leopard gecko to sleep in these weird positions but we really wouldn’t recommend that you do this.
In our opinion, there is just no need to do it and the majority of people will be fine just leaving the heat lamp set out as it is without ever having to worry about their leopard geckos sleeping position.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over the more commonly asked sleeping leopard gecko questions that we see each month to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you better understand why your pet leopard gecko may choose to sleep in these positions or sleep for so long each day but this is considered normal for a leopard gecko. There is no need to go out of your way to make drastic changes to the vivarium setup of your pet leopard gecko and you can usually just leave it as it is.
