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How do people tell their baby twins apart? Parents have many strategies. Some of them are pretty funny.
laughingjackals98 asked: Parents of twins, how did you make sure you didn't mix your kids up when they were babies and if you did how did you figure out which was which?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
ID bracelets.
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My parents made a little purple bracelet that said my name on it and a pink one for my sister until they could tell the difference without it. Sometimes I wonder if the bracelets ever got switched by mistake though...
This just made me realize that humans can't be identified like a car or anything with a serial number. People don't have bar codes and stuff.
I think I may be really dumb
DNA, fingerprints?
Identical twins have identical DNA. Also I can't imagine parents taking fingerprints from their babies when they're born, so I doubt that would work in these scenarios.
Size matters, but so does personality.
When my identical Daughters where still in hospital they wore hospital tags. When we finally got them out of ICU, we were carefully monitoring their weight by weighing them daily. they had a 200g difference in weight consistently for the first many months, (which is fairly significant when you arent much over 1kg) so we always knew.
After the first few months we just knew them, and it has never been hard for my wife or myself to tell them apart, despite being able to confuse most people with ease. The most obvious physical difference we know of is that the one's earlobe is shaped slightly differently, but their personalities are very distinct.
I know of several twins who have anxiety about the possibility of being 'the fat twin'. Now I kind of hope they never read this someday, and realize that you could mainly tell them apart in their infancy because one of them was definitely 'the fat twin.'
This should be obvious.
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My friend has boy/girl twins. She still gets asked how she tells them apart. Ummmmm.....
"Well this one has a small freckle near her ear, and this one has a penis."
"This one will have breasts in about 15 years"
"And so will the other."
"You gotta stop feeding them junk food, Fran."
Sometimes mothers always know... or do they?
I'm a preschool teacher. One year, I had 3 pairs of twins in the same class, but only one pair was identical. One of the boys was named Drew, so his mother usually dressed him in blue. "Drew wears blue." His twin wore any other color, but most often red. I was grateful as I could not tell them apart otherwise.
I asked their mother how she told them apart. "They just look different to me."
This would take one heck of a steady hand. They're tiny!
My boss had twins, and when they were born, she painted their toenails different colors so she could tell them apart.
Baby toenails are f*cking tiny. I'm impressed she could even do that successfully.
When everything is identical, even the clothes, it gets confusing.
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Aunt of twins here. Babysat them once when they were newborns. My sister brings them over and I had to ask her which twin was which. Keeping Baby A on the left of the living area and Baby B on the right, I had to figure out how to tell them apart because my sister dressed them the exact same, packed the exact same blankets, extra clothes, socks, burp clothes, etc. (evil witch)...I immediately went into panic mode. BUT then I realized I did have a way to tell them apart. I used nail polish to mark X's on their socks. Blue for Baby A and Orange for Baby B (then I wrote it down in case I forgot LOL).
I feel like parents of multiples are playing on hard anyway, but why do so many whack the difficulty up to insane by putting the infants in matching clothes?
It's cute, but surely it causes some headaches? It's probably easier once they can talk properly though
Ohhhkay then.
My parents circumcised me, but not my twin.
Do you have strong opinions about that now?
A bit jealous of my twin. I wouldn't have chosen to be circumcised given the option, but my parents did their best..
My personal belief is the decision shouldn't have been made for me without medical necessity. Like I shower once or twice a day so it's no benefit because to be circumcised all it would have been is an additional thing to wash.
What birthmark?
My brothers are identical twins but one of them had the consideration to be born with a bright red, circular birthmark in the middle of his forehead. Very handy.
But I could always tell them apart anyway, even when the mark was covered. They look different to me and always did. Mom used to get me to tell her which was which in pictures where you couldn't see the birthmark.
This parent avoided the problem entirely.
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I gave them both the same name so it never mattered.
This guy twins.
Why not?
My parents just said whomever started responding to the name they said, that was the kid whose name it was. Hell I could have originally been my brothers name.
That's so chill. Love it.