Ruin My Week
Identical twins and triplets are rare enough that most people have limited experience with them and may even do a double-take when they see what appears to be a glitch in the Matrix. Those who, naturally, know the most about it are the parents who are out there buying two of everything. While it surely comes with many joys being the parent of twins or triplets comes with its own set of challenges: namely, uh, how do you tell your own kids apart when they are genetically identical?
Among such parents this is apparently a very common fear, so when a user on Reddit recently asked that very question – “How sure are you that you never accidentally switched them around and raised them under the wrong names?” – the answers were…numerous.
Here are some of the ways parents tell their identical offspring apart.
1.
A friend painted the kids toe nails, (green for one twin, blue for the other)
2.
I’m a father to twins, and this was one of my bigger concerns before they were born. Some tips that I read about to tell the difference upon their arrival was to look at their belly buttons as they would be shaped differently as well as look for any unique birthmarks.
The belly button trick didn’t pan out for me, but one of my sons was born with a birthmark on his inner left leg, so that’s how I was able to keep track of which one is which.
3.
I know someone with identical triplets. she said this was her absolute biggest, all consuming fear. They kept the hospital bands on as long as possible, and then used colored sharpies and kept one of each babies feet color-coded. The third trip has always been considerably smaller though so she is easy to tell apart (she got less placenta or something). The other two though are completely interchangeable. She said they did the color coding thing for the first few years until the kids knew who they were and could tell each other apart.
4.
Parent of twins here. When they were first born in the hospital, literally a few hours old, they were in little cots with their name tags above their heads. Someone opened a door too fast and the breeze knocked both tags to the ground. I picked the tags up and couldn’t remember which was which so just guessed. No one else needs to know. Especially not their Mother.
5.
My parents kept our baby bracelets on for weeks after we came home, I was baby a, my sis was baby b. Although last year I did get in a friendly argument with my mom when she thought I was born second. Had to get my birth certificate to remind her I’M THE OLDER SISTER (by 58 seconds, I got pulled out of the c section first)
6.
Ours were mo-di, meaning they shared a placenta. As a result, one was born 9 ounces heavier, which is a pretty large difference when you consider they were both under 5 pounds. So in those first few months of exhaustion and delirium, if we were ever concerned we’d gotten them confused, just threw them on the baby scale. Only resorted to that once or twice. That size difference still exists to this day, over three years later, but they also look and act very differently.
7.
Father of identical twin boys here.
The day after their birth the boys were sleeping in a hospital cot designed for twins. The cot itself lay on a slight incline, to ensure that the baby’s heads were kept slightly elevated.
This, unfortunately, caused both the boys’ hospital tags to slide off their skinny little legs during the night and land at the bottom of the cot.
If I hadn’t taken a photo of the boys the night before and written their names on the picture (using my phone’s stylus), then we would have never known exactly who was who. Bullet dodged.
8.
I read something once where a father asked advice about getting one baby tattooed to tell them apart but they were still teeny infants.
One had a very serious heart condition and one didn’t. If the one with the condition missed his meds it could kill him. If the one that didn’t have the condition was given the meds it could kill him.
He was asking for advice because they had spent a significant time in the er recently when the meds were accidentally given to the wrong baby.
They had tried everything, bracelets, painting toes, and lots of other stuff according to him but they were terrified of mixing them up again especially since the accidental medication almost killed the baby.
I just remember everyone calling him a monster and me being all for it. He even wanted it brown so they could just make it look like a freckle to keep both babies healthy and alive.
9.
Father of triplets.
I honestly just took my wife’s word for it for the first 6 months or so.
But she named them (and knew their sex and which one was where) before they were born.
10.
I know a set of twins who’s parents switched their names permanently on purpose.
After giving the twins their names at the hospital, their mum and dad brought them home and decided their individual personalities actually suited the opposite name. So their parents just switched their names — didn’t have to do any paperwork. It’s amazing, now that the twins are fully grown (in their late 20s now) their personalities are still so opposite (artist vs. banker) and their names suit them both absolutely perfectly.
Also, it’s a great story now that they tell everyone — which is very cute.
