Room Sharing and How it Affects Your Schedule

My family of 4 lives in a small condo, and we always get asked “how do you manage with both kids in the same room?”

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I’ll tell you, it’s not easy. But here’s how we make it work, and you can too!

1.    Sleep train in a different room.

When we were first sleep training our second child, we started out by training him in our room in a pack and play and having him nap in the shared room as often as possible to get him used to sleeping there. That way, we avoided disrupting our older child as much as possible.

2.    Put them to sleep at different times

We often put our younger child to sleep first and then our older child about half an hour after. This allows some time for the younger child to fall asleep so they can fall asleep without disruption.

3.    We napped them in separate rooms

If both kids need to nap, we will put them to nap in separate rooms since nap times can be very tricky if disrupted. It’s much easier to nap them separately than in the same space.

4.    Use an “okay to wake” clock to establish a wake-up time

We like to use a clock that indicates a wake-up time to make sure our older child doesn’t come out of the room too early in the morning. This helps avoid waking up our younger son, who’s a much lighter sleeper!

We also taught him to close the door behind him if he needs to come out of the room at night to avoid disturbing his brother. So far, it’s been working decently!

At the end of the day, sometimes things will be a little wonky when kids share a room, but being adaptable and learning where to adjust to avoid disruption is key. For more information and help when two kids share a room, contact us at Nighttime Heroes Sleep Schedule Coaching.