I Can’t Sleep Train My Child Because She’ll Wake Up Her Sibling and Then Things Will Be Even Worse

Dear Abby,

I want to sleep train my two daughters, ages 5 months old and 2.5 years old, respectively, but I have a problem. I am scared that if I let either child cry, she will wake her sister. Two children awake at the same time, especially in the middle of the night, is my personal nightmare. 

As a result, I am feeding the baby every 2-3 hours all night long, to keep her quiet, and I have to crawl into the crib with my older daughter several times each night to soothe her back to sleep. It can take up to an hour each time to get her sleeping again. 

Also, my older daughter refuses to let my husband put her to bed -- she screams if he tries to help -- and I am exclusively breastfeeding the baby, so I have to do everything myself. 

I am completely exhausted and I don’t know what to do. Please help!

Thanks,
​
Leah

Fear of waking a sibling is a common theme with the parents I work with. Many of my clients live in apartments or small houses. And many of my families with twins need or want to keep their children together in one room. 

I get it. I've been there. I was in a one bedroom apartment until my older daughter was one. Then I had a two bedroom apartment until my younger daughter was two-and-a-half. And of course, my children still share a room whenever we travel. 

So we have experienced a lot of room sharing in my life as a parent. It's challenging, no doubt about it. 

Here's my advice: lean in. Embrace the pain. Don't try to keep one quiet to avoid waking the other.

Here's why: as long as you are desperate to keep one child quiet to avoid waking the other, your children are in control. And if they are a toddler or older, they undoubtedly know it. And will use it to their advantage.

Unlike new parents, children are designed to learn to sleep through their siblings' noises. There is no biological advantage to a sibling waking up to the sounds of another child, so with practice, they can learn to sleep through it. 

This is especially true for twins but also holds true for siblings with an age difference.

Here's some more specific tips: 

1. Use a white noise machine. Every time. There's no reason to make this any harder than it already is. I like this white noise machine by Homemedics. It's small, inexpensive, light-weight, and loud. Every easy to throw into even a compact diaper bag. 
   
   If you are worried about dependence on this tool, stop. It's better to have a well-rested set of children than children that are attached to this tool (but can learn to sleep without it) than a chronically exhausted family. 
   
   
2. Accept that the only way your children can learn to sleep through each others' noise is to let them practice. As long as you are dancing between them, playing bedtime-whack-a-mole, you are a prisoner. Set yourself free. Children cry sometimes. It's okay. If one is crying, reassure the other that everything is okay. And then let them be. Whatever your preferred method of sleep training is, let those babies cry. It's the fastest way to learn. It's the only way to learn. 
   
   
3. A giant exception to rule two: if one child is a good sleeper and the other is not (this comes up frequently with twins), take the good sleeper into your bedroom temporarily. Set up a travel crib or cot on the floor so you can sleep train the bad sleeper without fear. Keep the good sleeper in your room -- but not in your bed! -- for a week or two. Just long enough to train the bad sleeper. Then get them back to room sharing again. 
   
   
4. Try very, very hard to have the children on complimentary sleep schedules. Unless you are that rare parent, at least during COVID, where you crave more one-on-one time with each child. If so, rock on. But most of my parents need alone time more than one-on-one time. 
   
   So if both your children nap, wrestle with the start times until they overlap. That might mean putting one down a little earlier than you might otherwise, or putting the other down a little later than ideal. Usually the first option works better since it's much easier for a child to fall asleep before becoming overtired. It's also easier to fall asleep while your sibling is playing in her own crib than it is to stay asleep if your sibling wakes up first, since she is more sleepy at the beginning of the nap than the end. 
   
   So for example, if your two-year-old ordinarily naps at 1 pm and your 5-month-old's second nap is at 11:30 am, compromise a bit for each and put them both down at 12 pm. And maybe cap the toddler's nap so that the two children can both go to bed for the night at 7 pm. 
   
   Alternatively, if your twins roomshare and one needs more sleep than the other, you can try to put the more tired one down first, then sneak in half hour later with the lower-sleep-needs baby. Don't wait too long to bring in the second baby, no more than thirty minutes, or the first will wake more easily. 
   
   
5. And one more thing for the partnered among us: unless one of you is lactating and thus, physically required for bedtime (maybe), don't let your child decide that only one parent is allowed to put him to bed. If, like Leah, your youngster will scream at bedtime if he doesn't have Mommy... so be it. Let him scream. Be sympathetic but firm. The adults make the rules, not the children. 
   
   The reason is this is two-fold. One, each adult needs a break sometimes from -- let's face it -- the tedium of bedtime. And two, children need to know that the adults are the rule-makers. It might seem like your child will be happier when he always gets his way, but actually, limits are extremely reassuring to children. Children need to know that they can test the rules and the rules won't change, no matter how much they protest. It makes them feel safe. So don't be afraid of tantrums. Lean in. It's good for him. 
   ​

As parents, we all want to make things easier for our children. But sometimes, making things easier -- in this case, trying to prevent one sibling from waking another -- is making things worse for everyone. Your children need you to be well-rested. And they will be so much better off when they can sleep through others' noises and get a great night of sleep without you. You are giving them a great gift, the gift of great sleep. There will just be a challenging period of adjustment to get there. You -- and they -- can survive that. 

If you would like achieving this goal, or any other sleep goal, schedule a free chat and get your family the sleep you deserve.