Because your model uses longitudinal data, it is best to check for the ICC before assuming independence. However, this particualr model has a small sample size, so it is singular, require(lme4) my_lme=lmer(Size~Time+(Time|Group),data=my_data,REML=F) isSingular(my_lme) [1] TRUE Let's try using a Bayesian model with a Wishart variance-covariance prior. require(blme) my_blmer=blmer(cov.prior='wishart',fixef.prior=NULL,resid.prior=NULL, formula=Size~Time+(Time|Group),data=my_data) isSingular(my_blmer) [1] FALSE So it works now, but make sure you can justify the use of a Wishart prior. Let's check the ICC: summary(my_blmer) Cov prior : Group ~ wishart(df = 4.5, scale = Inf, posterior.scale = cov, common.scale = TRUE) Prior dev : -1.4809 Linear mixed model fit by REML ['blmerMod'] Formula: Size ~ Time + (Time | Group) Data: my_data REML criterion at convergence: -7.2 Scaled residuals: Min 1Q Median 3Q Max -2.74016 -0.23951 -0.04383 0.26814 2.76185 Random effects: Groups Name Variance Std.Dev. Corr Group (Intercept) 0.54671 0.7394 Time 0.01784 0.1336 -0.98 Residual 0.01331 0.1154 Number of obs: 20, groups: Group, 3 Fixed effects: Estimate Std. Error t value (Intercept) 0.25213 0.43100 0.585 Time 0.06510 0.07882 0.826 Correlation of Fixed Effects: (Intr) Time -0.970 The ICC is quite large: 0.546/(0.546+0.017+0.133)=0.78. Thus, you should be using an HLM. Also, because you have a small sample size, you should use a Bayesian HLM.