How do families with identical twins keep from mixing them up when they are very young?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The question should be self-explanatory.

Your first set of children as brand new parents is an adorable set of identical twins (or triplets etc.). The hospital generally has good systems in place to keep of individual babies but do most of the parents or other family members? It is easy to put them in different colored socks but what happens when you put them down for a nap in the same crib and didn’t anticipate that both of them were going to pull them off and mix them into a pile. What if you put them in a bath confident in your ability to tell them apart based on some system you came up with and you find out that that your supposed system is completely water soluble.

I know it isn’t the end of the world if little Emma and Elizabeth get switched when they are two weeks old but it seems like it could cause some distress to the parents or other relatives if they get themselves in a situation where they really aren’t sure. It could be a problem for the kids when they are old enough to have some sense of identity but can’t communicate well yet. I know that no children are truly identical some people are much more observant than others.

2

I’m not sure how it makes a difference when they are just little babies. At some age they’ll know who they are but I guess they can play the old switcheroo if they wanted to.

The Dahm tripletshad little dots tattooed on their butts so their parents could tell them apart.

3

Even the most “identical” twins become distinguishable after awhile. Twins are often different sizes and have different bithmarks. Parents will also eventually notice subtle facial differences. I have identical twin cousins, and you can tell them a part because one twin has droopier eyelids than the other. Then there comes the behavioral differences. Everyone’s got different personalities and does things in their own, memorable way.

My twin and I are fraternal, but we look virtually identical from newborn to 3 months of age. We are almost completely indistinguishable in the baby pics from this period. But not completely. Apparently it took a while before I could get the hang of holding up my head, so I’m the baby with the floppy head. That’s what I look for when I’m trying to find me in family pictures.

4

I remember we had a thread a while back where one of the solutions for telling a pair of male twins apart was circumcision.

5

It sounds like mixing them up when they are very young could happen and probably has at some point. I know it isn’t a huge deal for the babies themselves if they get switched even multiple time when they are very young but I would guess that some parents take the issue seriously because new parents often worry about things a like more mundane than that.

Identical twins supposedly have different fingerprints. Is there anyone that uses that fact as possible failsafe? I suppose you could implant a microchip under their skin like some people do with pets. Do any significant number of parents in that situation use id technology in case they really can’t be sure by themselves?

6

A friend had identical boys. When they were babies, one of them ways had on blue and one always had on red. It wasn’t something easily lost (socks or a hat) and it wasn’t necessarily the whole outfit. Just enough to distinguish them. For the first few months, the rule was that they were never undressed at the same time. By 4 months or so, the parents could tell them apart.

Besides the emotional issues of switching the twins, you wouldn’t want to get them mixed up for their medical records. Even if they are otherwise healthy, you’d want their weights and lengths to be accurate over time.

7

Actually, the newborn days are the time when it’s probably easiest. I could tell a friend’s twins apart, because one was bigger, one was ruddier, and the one born first had the pointy head from pushing open the cervix, while the second one had a head more like a c-section baby.

The smaller one caught up pretty quickly, their color evened out, and their heads normalized. That took a couple of weeks. By then, she had picked up on a lot of little things, which she would point out to me, and I’d see them when she pointed them out, but I wasn’t around them enough to “practice,” so I’d forget half the little things, and the rest, I couldn’t remember which one went with which twin.

Also, they changed as they grew, and people who saw them every day could tell them apart, but people who didn’t see them for a week wouldn’t be able to, because they’d change too much. We had a few pairs of identical twins come through the preschool my son went to, where I worked for a few years (so we could afford it), and the older they were, the easier it was to eventually tell them apart.

Twins I knew as adults I could tell apart after a while, even if they wore their hair the same, because they didn’t change, so by the time I’d memorized what was different about them, they’d still look like that-- also, adults have picked up things, like tiny scars, or one will be a little taller, or they will have different ways of dressing.

When twins aren’t yours, your brain does something weird, though. We had fraternal twins at the preschool who didn’t look anything alike, and still my brain lumped them together, for some reason, so that I was calling one by the other’s name all the time. We also one year had two unrelated boys enroll who were really similar looking. It took me about two days to learn which was which, but once I did, I never called either one by the wrong name. So, I think when twins are yours, it’s probably easier to learn to tell them apart, than it is if you are their teacher, or neighbor, or something. I have no idea why.

8

I can believe it but that is a bad solution in my opinion. It isn’t that I am for or against circumcision, it is that it has the potential to be a hotbed of debate especially among identical twins.

Twin 1: ''Well, look at that, I’m natural, your aren’t!"

Twin 2: “I am am cleaner and more socially acceptable. I have less risk of STD’s too!”

Twin 1: “I am more sensitive and can get more pleasure out of sex.”

Twin 2: “Well I can last a lot longer!”.

That isn’t a conversation you want to hear from your 3 year olds at bath time.

9

A couple I knew had identical twins and couldn’t tell them apart for months. They painted the toenails of one, and dressed them in colour coded outfits (their older children began calling them “the pink one and the yellow one” instead of using their names).

The nail polish was an extra level of insurance in case a bleary eyed parent mixed up the clothing during a 3am poosplosion.

10

I have identical triplet cousins. Their parents painted their toe and finger nails different colors.

11

I went to school with a set of identical twins who’s parents did that. They didn’t remember their parents ever actually using that to tell them apart. Until high school they were always put in indifferent homerooms, and while teachers were constantly getting them confused we didn’t have any trouble telling them apart.

12

My 14-month old sons are “identical” twins, but my wife and I can tell them apart easily. Subtle facial differences, and the elder lost more weight in the first few weeks of their life. Also, their cribs have their names engraved on them, and we’re careful to buy them not merely non-identical clothing but clothing in different color schemes. “Esau” gets lots of reds and blues and browns; “Jacob” purples and yellows and greens.

13

A Sharpie! :smiley:

14

Fast forward 18 years, how do they tell them apart now? Short arm inspections?

15

If one twin was circumcised and one wasn’t, it may have been that one was circumcised for a medical reason. It does happen. There’s a condition where the foreskin is too tight and causes the penis to bend, and it’s also sometimes the solution for a boy who gets repeated (painful) infections of the foreskin, which can lead to scarring and all sorts of problems with sexuality and function, as well as turning into UTIs and bladder infections.

Our son was circumcised by a mohel, but I still read the pamphlets in the hospital, including one on circumcisions after the neo-natal period, when my son was born.

I have trouble imagining parents actually doing that solely as a way to tell twins apart. I mean, if it happens serendipitously, I can see using it that way (Oh, by the way, Babysitter, Bobby is circumcised, and Billy isn’t), but not doing it just for that. And I would suspect a doctor would counsel against it.

16

In countries where it is common to pierce the ears of baby girls, such as Spain, you can use different earrings. Now that it is perfectly acceptable for men to have pierced ears, the same trick could work for two boys.
(Note, before we rehash that conversation: the backs of baby studs are screwed on, it is extremely difficult for the baby to remove them. They are specifically designed to be safe.)

17

See this nearby thread: Any advice on how to tell black kittens apart?. Maybe it will have some helpful information.

18

Yeah but 18 years of such stimulating conversations and you know they’ll grow up to be master debaters, both of them! :slight_smile:

19

Do they still put those bracelets on babies in the hospital? If so, I think I’d leave that on the baby until I knew I could tell the difference.

20

The most common solution I’ve heard of is the toenail polish, but a year or two ago there was a photo going around of a Chinese (I think) couple who had quads and just shaved numbers 1 through 4 into the boys’ hair.