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Can your twins share a room or nursery?
Absolutely.
Our twin girls have shared a room since the day we brought them home from the hospital.
In fact, our girls shared a crib for several months before moving their own cribs. (Please note that the safest sleeping arrangement for your infant twins is for each twin to be in their own cribs.)
Two Cribs
Should twins share a nursery? It worked for us!
(RELATED: Check out the Dad's Guide to Twins Youtube channel for additional helpful twin tips and tricks videos.)
Remember, your twins have been together since those early days inside the womb. They are completely used to each other’s presence.
After we moved our girls to their own cribs, we noticed that they actually missed each other. Our girls would squawk at each other to make sure the other was in the room.
Two Beds
When the time comes to move out of the cribs, you’ll probably want two beds, too. You should be able to fit two twin-sized beds (yes, they call them twin beds) in the floorspace of even a small bedroom. Alternatively, you can look at bunk beds or a trundle bed to economize space.
Advantages of Twins Sharing a Room
- You only have to decorate one room.
- When you hear one of your twins crying in the middle of the night, you don’t have to figure out which bedroom to run to.
- All the kids’ clothes will be in one room, which makes it easy for dressing when they are young and makes it easy to share clothes (especially if you have identical twins)
- If you put both your twins in the same room, you don’t have to buy that bigger house right away.
Disadvantages of Twins Sharing a Room
- As they get older, your twins will wake each other up. Most often this happens in the morning, when you are hoping for a few more minutes of sleep.
- Quieting down for bedtime is a challenge. Our girls liked to chatter and sing to each other after we put them in their cribs. This led to about an hour of activity before they calm down and finally go to sleep.
- Naps in the same room are difficult because your twins will just want to play with each other and not sleep.
- Boy/Girl twins will eventually reach the age where sharing a room is awkward.
Be Flexible
You’ll hear most twin parents talk about their twins sharing a room and how it worked out great.
But what if it doesn’t?
What if your twins have trouble sleeping or refuse to go to sleep because they are always distracted by their twin?
(NOTE: Still expecting? 
Get weekly updates on your twin pregnancy here.)
It is OK to move your twins to different rooms.
Just because something worked well for others doesn’t mean you have to stick to that if it doesn’t work for your family.
Will Separate Bedrooms for Twins Interfere with Twin Bonding?
We’ve always tried to establish habits and routines that we intend to keep. This has helped our kids get in a good routine and know what to expect. If you ultimately plan on having twins in separate bedrooms, now is a great time to start.
It is as good a time as any when you bring them home from the hospital to just put them in their separate rooms where they’re going to be eventually.
(RELATED: Still expecting twins? Will you be having two boys, two girls, or boy/girl twins? Answer these quick questions to see what several old wives’ tales claim you’ll be having….)
Your twins will have plenty of time together throughout the day to bond.
Don’t worry too much about them losing out on the ability to bond as twins because they’ve already spent close to nine months in utero together.
Once you bring them home, they’re going to spend a lot of time together in the daytime, feeding, and playing. So, if you have them in separate bedrooms for sleeping, I don’t see that as a big problem to interfere with their twin bonding experience.
Sleeping Arrangements to Accommodate Twins and Older Children
If you already have children when your twins are born, it may be challenging to make sleeping arrangements for all the kids.
We live in a three-bedroom home. When our girls were born, we had our two boys sharing a room, our master bedroom, and a room for the twins.
If you need to move older children around, start that transition during the twin pregnancy so your children are used to the new arrangements before twin babies turn life upside down.
This way there are no major adjustments or transitions when the twins arrive, which will already be a big surprise for your older children. You might as well make that transition now, so they have less change when the twins do arrive.
When Your Twins Get Older
Just because your twins can share a room doesn’t mean that they will want to share a room forever.
How long your twins share a room is really dependent on the space you have and their own preferences.
As your twins get older, they will start to more strongly express their desires whether that be to continue sharing a room or demanding their own space.
If you’re stuck in a home without extra bedrooms, it may just be time to tough it out. Or if you have the means, moving to a bigger house might work for your family.
We are still in the same three-bedroom house where we started our family.
To accommodate our daughters’ desires for their own rooms, we remodeled their bedroom to have a large bookcase/divider down the middle so they each have their own space.
It was a creative compromise to give each girl her own “room” without having to buy a bigger house.
Remember that it is just fine to get creative with the space you have. Look twice and you might just be able to make it work with what you have.
If you’ve already had your twins, do they share a room? What do you think, should twins share a room?
My twins are 14 months old and we were never able to have them sleep in the same bed – not from the first day!!
They ALWAYS woke each other up. By the time they were six months old I’d been struggling with getting them to not wake each other up and let me sleep for more than an hour at a time by being in the same room and gave up.
They are in separate rooms now and I am MUCH happier, and so are they.
I know many twins who share beautifully, but I don’t think that it’s a steadfast rule. I expected it to be because I talked to so many twin parents who told me that’s how it was…. but there are definitely exceptions 😉
@Lara – You make a great point that everyone’s twins are different and that we as parents need to adapt to what is working and what isn’t.
We had to do some creative problem solving to get them separated for naps so I understand that the same room method doesn’t always work in every case.
We have boy/girl twins your article mentions they will feel awkward sharing the same room at what age does that start? Obviously if they still sharing when entering teen years sure but before that when?
@Jay – When girls start to get cooties, that is when the brother will want to move out. My guess would be between ages 8 and 10.
My twin boys are almost a year old and they have been sleeping in seperate rooms from about one month old! Now, I need to give the one twins room up and am wondering if i should move him into the main bedroom or move him in with his brother. The problem is, his brother sleeps through the night (yay) and he still wakes up twice (boo), so what do I do?
@Kathy – Since you will be disrupting the sleeping arrangements anyway, I’d recommend you move him in with his brother if that is ultimately where you’d like him long term. Otherwise you’ll have another transition later which may or may not go smoothly and you’ll have to repeat the process.
The book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins, is a great resource for helping get your twins in a good sleep routine.
From our experience, any transition in sleeping arrangements may have a bumpy start but you’ll have to stick to it for it to work.
Our girls often sleep through each other’s night time wake-ups when they happen. So your sleeping boy may be very similar and just keep sleeping despite his brother. Remember, just because one twin wakes up, it doesn’t mean the other will too. You won’t know until you try.
Hi Joe.
Our twin girls are 16 months and have complicated sleeping arrangements. 1. At home they sleep in seperate rooms (one in the nursery/one in our room). They’ve slept like this since they turned 9months. Both girls will have one to two night wakings, but quickly go back to sleep. 2. At daycare they sleep in the same room, right next to one another. But they don’t take great naps at daycare. For obvious reasons.
My husband and our dog Zelda would really like to get back to sleeping in the same room. What are your strategies? Do you have any tips? We tried over the weekend and they girls were so excited they played for about an hour and then we had to go in and seperate them again. I hate doing that, but one would settle and the other (the one that was coming from our room) wouldn’t.
We are desperate to retore out marriage and our sanity. Thanks so much!
@Brit – Getting twins on a great sleeping routine is hard.
We had a season where my wife or I had to sit in our twin girls’ room at bedtime just so they would be calm. You might try this and see if they stay calm and fall asleep. I’d sit in the room with the lights out. I was there to soothe and quiet our girls but wouldn’t interact with them otherwise.
As each night passed, I (or my wife) would slowly sit closer to the door. Eventually we could leave them alone and they would fall asleep OK.
There will be a transition period so don’t expect your twins to comply and fall asleep without problems right away. Be patient and consistent and things will work out.
We loved these books for helping get our twins on a good sleep routine:
https://dadsguidetotwins.com/sleephabits
https://dadsguidetotwins.com/sleeplady
We kept our twins (B/G, not identical) in one crib until they started rolling. We kept the other crib made up so that there would be a clean crib when needed.
They shared a room until age 4, when we moved across the country and into a larger house. No other siblings. Naptime was challenging until they were in beds and we decided that we only cared that they were quiet and not that they were napping. While in cribs they would bounce the cribs across the floor to be adjacent once they were standing.
@Christian – I’m glad to hear you found a setup that worked!
My identical twin girls never shared a crib – in fact they wanted their space so much that they hated being swaddled too! We had the twin pack n’ play when they were newborns and then transitioned to individual cribs. They’ve always been in the same room. And yes, they kept each other awake (never napped!). My twins are 9 years old now, and have had bunk beds since they were 4 years old. Their younger brother, who just turned 7 years old, was sharing a room with them, but just moved out to his own shoebox of a room 😛 He’s still adjusting to being alone.
@Ann – Thanks for sharing what worked with your twins!
For me there isn´t one answer. And even, there isn’t an answer that works forever. Maybe at the beginning it´s better to share and a few months later not to share and some years later on to share again.