Creating Harmony: Strategies for Siblings Sharing a Bedroom

There are many reasons why your children would have to share a room. You have moved and your house doesn’t have enough bedrooms, or you are adding a new baby to your family. It could even be to use the other bedroom as a play area. Whatever the situation, many times families find themselves in a position where their children need to share a room. Room sharing is not uncommon. Many families have children sharing rooms for most of the children’s lives. It is ok to find yourself in a position where a couple of your children may need to share a room.

It can feel overwhelming if your children have never shared a room. At first you may not know how to navigate any of it. How will they sleep? Will they wake up all night? Will they keep each other up all night? These can all be questions you ask yourself when getting ready for your children to share rooms. One thing to consider when starting to share rooms is to look at the age of your children. Siblings can share rooms at any age. Having children close in age does not mean they will share a room better than if there is a big age gap. Personalities can also play a role in room sharing. Getting the children who have the more compatible personalities can help the transition go smoother and easier for everyone. You don’t always have a choice of what children, or whether or not your children should share a room or not.

Positives

If you don’t have a choice in your children sharing a room don’t despair. There are some strong Pros to having your children share a bedroom. One is that it will help your children’s bond between the two of them grow. Learning to live with your sibling in the same room can definitely help nurture the sibling bond. Another pro to room sharing is it can help promote social skills. Your child will be learning how to share, and how to respect other people’s boundaries, every single day. It will also help your children learn to problem solve together, as well as learn conflict resolution.

Drawbacks

The main negative to room sharing with children is sleep. Your children may delay their bedtimes. This can happen by either talking and giggling with each other, which in some ways is how they bond, so don’t shut that down too quickly. They may wake each other up in the middle of the night. This happens less often than you may think though. Children are way better at blocking out noises in the night than adults. Children between the age of 2-12 are more likely to sleep through a siren. If your 2 year old can sleep through a siren, your 2 year old can sleep through your infant fussing for a second.

Another negative could be your children waking up earlier than they would having their own bedroom. Again this can be navigated, you can use an “ok to wake” light that helps your children know when it is time to get up for the day. Teach older children to get up out of bed and come find you in the mornings then to lay in bed to holler for you, which could potentially wake up their sibling.

Tips & Tricks

If you have an older child sharing with an infant, you will need to set some guidelines with your older child. If you have a monitor set up in the room, show this to your child so they know you can hear the baby. This will help stop them from hollering out if they are woken up by the baby to try to get you to hear the baby too. You can then tell them before bed that if they hear the baby crying, they can roll over back to sleep because you hear them too and will come get the baby if needed. Another boundary to set with your older child is to make sure they know not to climb in the crib with your baby, or to throw items into the crib for the baby.

Another tip most people found beneficial when room sharing is to stagger bedtimes. This means to put one child to sleep first, wait 30-60 minutes then put the other child in bed. Depending on your children and their bedtimes, depends on how this will work for your family. It is also beneficial to have 2 children that are sharing a room to both be good sleepers. Adding a child into a room who can’t sleep through the night, can lead to everyone being up in the middle of the night. Not ideal for anyone involved.

When your children need to nap or have quiet time, it can be helpful to do this in separate rooms. This can mean one child is in the master bedroom while the other is in their own bed. Having nap times at different times can also help. If you have a baby, setting up a pack in play in a different room can also help separate for nap times. Daytime sleeping can be so much different for children than night time sleeping, sharing a room for daytime sleep can lead to a child not falling asleep at all.

Giving each child their own space within the room is also important. They can have a special shelf for their own books and toys within the room. Or a special toy trunk that holds their special things. Older children may want to decorate their half of the room in their own individualized styles. Bunk beds can also give your child their own space.

Limiting toys and books in a room can also help with space as well as limit distractions at bedtime.

Don’t Despair

Remember when you start room sharing there will be an adjustment period. Everyone may lose some sleep in the first couple of nights. It is important to be flexible as well as firm with what the rules are for the situation. The good news is most of the time, kids figure it out and everyone returns to normal sleep soon. In some cases there is no time of adjustment for the kids and they share rooms seamlessly.

Sharing a room with a brother or sister can be a good thing! #HealthSurgeon

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