Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

How do new parents not mix their identical twins up?

101 replies

Woody479 · 27/01/2020 12:15

Do they keep their names bands on them? Just thinking back to how tired I was when DS was a newborn, you could easily get them mixed up and then they’d forever not be the baby they were born to be! I wonder if there’s any twins out there who got mixed up and never swopped back again?!

OP posts:
PowerslidePanda · 27/01/2020 14:49

Mine are 12 weeks old and I'm confident that they still have the identities they had at birth - it's not that we've never mixed them up, we just know the differences well enough to realise when it's happened. We did do the nail varnish thing for a while but never had to rely it. DT1 was much smaller at birth. Now they're a similar size, but we know DT2 has a more elongated face, DT1 has a little dimple when she frowns, etc. Harder to see the difference in photos though - we've got a few pictures of them individually where they're not face-on to the camera and we're not certain which twin it is.

mumwon · 27/01/2020 14:51

some twins are mirror twins in their case they can have opposing hair whirls which are centred on the back of the head ie to the right or to the left at the back & they can be left/right handed

GaaaaarlicBread · 27/01/2020 14:54

My aunties are identical , and I’m talking full on can’t tell them apart even my cousins got confused as babies when they were both there ! So as babies my Grandma has said she’s pretty sure they’ve got mixed up along the years before they learned to recognise their names . She has photos of them together and she used to try and position them on photos in the same order so she knew who was who but looking back she says she still can’t tell the difference 😂

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Families
Bluewavescrashing · 27/01/2020 14:55

blue - if one is a girl then they aren’t identical triplets smile. Or do you mean she had triplets consisting of an identical twins and a singleton?

Yes, I was aware that the girl and boys were not identical. I meant that she had triplets if which the two boys were identical 😁

Jux · 27/01/2020 14:56

my friend tied some cotton round the eldest's wrist for the first week, after which she didn't need to.

Jux · 27/01/2020 14:57

Also, you can put them in different clothes and 'just remember'

MarySidney · 27/01/2020 14:58

Two of my aunts were identical twins. The elder one, 'A', I saw quite often. The other, 'B', lived in a different part of the country so I saw her quite rarely.

At a family funeral, when they were elderly, I had quite a long conversation with A, as I thought, then discovered I actually was talking to B.

In my defence, A was out of the room, and I hadn't known that B was going to be there, so wasn't expecting to see her.

Sgtmajormummy · 27/01/2020 15:05

Awwwww!
I thought Alexander McCall Smith invented the genius nail polish trick.

Thelnebriati · 27/01/2020 15:11

Do they have identical fingerprints?

ivykaty44 · 27/01/2020 15:13

I heard a story recently, where an identical twin Ben found out that billy the other twin, had a raised birth mark on the back of his head. Apparently this was how their parents told them apart until their hair grew

Only Ben could feel the raised birth mark underneath his hair

CameraTime · 27/01/2020 15:13

I asked a friend of mine about this (she has identical twin boys). She said it took her a while to tell them apart, but she used the nail polish thing until then.

Then I asked what would happen if it washed off and the twins got swapped and she said "Well, unless one of them has a medical condition, it doesn't really matter at this stage" which is true, but was mind-blowing to me at the time!

MyNameHasBeenTaken · 27/01/2020 15:37

Ds had twins in his class.
When they were small, their mum used to stick a post-it on the back of each child.
When people visited, she always said "a is in blue, b is in red" or whatever colour they were in.
She never dressed them identical.
When they started school, a always had proper grey school socks, and b always had non-matching bright coloured ones.

wibblysnail · 27/01/2020 16:11

I read that If identical twins have children with identical twins then the children are genetically brother/sister rather than cousins.

namechangenumber2 · 27/01/2020 16:22

I frequently work with sets of twins and I've known a few parents to use name bracelets

Treescaper · 27/01/2020 16:26

I could tell mine apart the instant they were born (others definitely could not though). Also kept name bands on for about two weeks to be sure. Then a dot of nail polish to be extra sure.

CroissantsAtDawn · 27/01/2020 16:28

I read a lovely story from an MNetter about one sleep-deprived day she cut their ID bracelets off and her DH came home to her sobbing because they wouldn't be able to tell which twin was which now.

They were b/g twins Grin

Scoose · 27/01/2020 16:47

I'm an identical twin I will have to ask my mum how she told us apart when we were babies, when my dsis and I are together we still get called by each others names!

SunshineCake · 27/01/2020 17:06

I asked on another thread something related and got no reply. I can't get my head around it not mattering.

CameraTime · 27/01/2020 17:16

@Thelnebriati apparently they don't have identical fingerprints!

Wasail · 27/01/2020 19:54

My nieces may or may not be identical. Thing is when they were scanned it seemed that they were in different sacks so DB and DSIS were told that they were definitely not identical. They are now 3 yo and no one can tell them apart Grin.
My question is more about how they decide their own identity? DNs have always been very sure about who they are (at least since they could express an opinion on it) despite everyone else getting them mixed up, they never question it.

PowerslidePanda · 27/01/2020 21:18

Thing is when they were scanned it seemed that they were in different sacks so DB and DSIS were told that they were definitely not identical.

I was shocked by the number of medical professionals who told me that being in separate sacs meant my twins were fraternal - sonographers, midwives, nurses, health visitors. When they came out looking very similar, we had them DNA tested, which revealed they were in fact identical - like a third of same sex DC/DA twins. It's really bad that so many professionals in the field of pregnancy don't know this.

grandmasterstitch · 27/01/2020 22:03

I nannied non identical twins for 3 years and when they started nursery, the teacher asked me how I could tell them apart. For starters one was blonde with blue eyes and the other was darker with brown eyes Hmm She'd be totally stuffed with identical twins!

HerRoyalFattyness · 27/01/2020 22:16

My twins (who I sadly lost) shared a placenta but had different sacks.
Would they have been identical? I do wonder often.

Melroses · 27/01/2020 22:19

Probably, if it was a shared placenta. Sometimes you can get two placentas fused.

Undercoverworker06 · 27/01/2020 22:21

I have twins girls, now well grown up. When we got them home from hospital, I kept their name tags on for a while, then painted the big toe nails of twin number one. They slept in the same cot for about 6 weeks, then went into individual cots. By then you could tell the subtle differences. However, one night when we took them out of their cots to feed them, they were put back into the wrong cots.
The following day, I got one twin up and dressed, thinking she was twin a, fed washed and changed the other one and then noticed she had the painted toe nail! I had to take her to her sister and actually put them together so I could see the differences. If it hadn't been for the toe nails I wonder if I'd have noticed?
If they were together you could see the slight differences but they quite often get mistaken for each other if they are on their own, even now.