Having two or more children sharing a room can be a sleep challenge for some parents. The first key guideline would be to ensure that all parties that share a room must be able to sleep through the night for this to work well; if you have multiples, then you must have your child or children learn to sleep through the night in the same space, without panicking and hooking out a wakeful child in an effort to preserve the sleep of another.
My ideal scenario with siblings is to have them independent in the overnight period before you put them together. If this is not possible, I would sometimes even remove a good sleeper and help the sleepless child learn the skill of consolidated sleep and then reunite them.
After that piece is taken care of, it is then important that you have some room-sharing guidelines for the young children to adhere to, for example:
-
No talking once lights go out
-
No waking someone that is already asleep
It can be helpful to sometimes stagger bedtimes in the beginning, to avoid over-stimulation in the run-up to bedtime. Obviously, it may take a while for all the parties to get good at sleeping together, but persevere if this is what you want for your children, or of course if space dictates that your children must share.
Lucy Wolfe, CGSC, MAPSC, is a paediatric sleep consultant and mum of four young children. She runs a private sleep consulting practice where she provides knowledge, expertise and valuable support to families across the country. See www.sleepmatters.ie, t: 087 2683584 or e: lucy@sleepmatters.ie.
