diff --git a/integration-tests/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/tests/indexer/AbstractITRealtimeIndexTaskTest.java b/integration-tests/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/tests/indexer/AbstractITRealtimeIndexTaskTest.java
index cdf61de8c3ba..7d97dc7ccd34 100644
--- a/integration-tests/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/tests/indexer/AbstractITRealtimeIndexTaskTest.java
+++ b/integration-tests/src/test/java/org/apache/druid/tests/indexer/AbstractITRealtimeIndexTaskTest.java
@@ -97,6 +97,10 @@ void doTest()
       LOG.info("indexerSpec: [%s]\n", task);
       taskID = indexer.submitTask(task);
 
+
+      // sleep for a while to let peons finish starting up
+      TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(5);
+
       // this posts 22 events, one every 4 seconds
       // each event contains the current time as its timestamp except
       //   the timestamp for the 14th event is early enough that the event should be ignored