to think that identical twin children should not be dressed the same?

[nutdust]

so, declaring my interest, i have identical twins and absolutely never dress them the same, for lots of reasons but mainly to help others identify who is who & to foster their individuality.
i'm not, & have never been in two minds about this decision, so the reason i'm posting is because i'm really curious to find out what others think when they see identical twins dressed exactly the same, because it makes me immediately want to tap the parents on the shoulder & ask them why on earth they are doing this, i.e. further emphasising their sameness & making them look like a cutesy side-show. there are long-term studies that evidence the unhelpful impact this has on the twin children. that trouble is, the twin parent community is a very polite one & there is never an opportunity to just ask; 'so why the hell do you dress your kids to look exactly the same?!'
so, what do you think? does it not even register or do you feel agrieved on behalf of the twins?

[goshhhhhh]

I'm a twin, non identical & we both hated being dressed the same. It's hard enough to get your own sense of identity as it is & actually it's quite damaging not that I'm talking from experience You are doing them a favour.

[Retropear]

Funny neither my twins or my sister's have even asked to be dressed the same.Why on earth would they?

[paxtecum]

I also hate it when you see same sex siblings close in age dressed the same too.

I always bought my DGD (18 months apart) the same clothes when they were younger, otherwise they wanted what the other had. The older one would try to squeze into small clothes and the younger one would have them hanging off her.

Now they choose and they have very different tastes.

[Lucked]

I suppose if I was given gifts and they were too young to know or wanted to dress the same that would be fine.

However I wouldn't spend the money on two sets of the same clothes, until they were old enough to insist on their own clothes I think I would have the one pot of clothes - more than if I had one child but not double it. This would undoubtably scar them for life .

In my dreams where I have twins they are always boy/girl so this has never been something I have thought about before.

[DroppingIn]

i have non-id boy twins. They were quite often dressed the same when younger as if I found clothes I liked, I liked them both to wear them. More often than not I would get the same clothes in different colours but if there was only one colour, they would get the same.

I even used to refuse to buy an item of clothing (normally character stuff like Spiderman etc) if there was only one in the right size as I did not want one to think I was favouring the other!

It is quite difficult to find different styles of clothing in different colours in the same size, especially if you are looking at reduced stuff because of the cost of buying 2 of everything.

Really it's no one else's business how parents dress their DC as long as they are clean and comfortable.

[VelvetEmbers]

I can't stand seeing children dressed identically, especially twins. We had 4 DC in 5.5 years and always made sure to dress them completely differently, especially the middle 2 boys who were always the same size.

[Cakecrumbsinmybra]

I also hate it when you see same sex siblings close in age dressed the same too.

My DC are 4 years apart and I have bought them the odd T-shirt the same, as it is v cute and there's a small window of time I could get a away with doing this. I seriously doubt most people do this every day, so to "hate" it seems a bit strong for a one-off indulgence on the parents part!

Re: the OP, twins, I wouldn't do it - I think twins must have enough complexities to deal with as it is. Maybe the odd outfit if they wanted to do so.

[gamescompendium]

The DDs have both had twins in their classes and the parents say the kids WANT to be dressed the same, when they were little they were dressed differently.

I have DDs that are only 18 months apart. I would never buy them identical outfits but I do find I subconsciously co-ordinate them and dress them in similar ways. So one day they'll both be wearing blue jeans and a colourful t-shirt, the next they'll both have a colourful skirt and white t-shirt on etc. They do get annoyed if one is in trousers and the other is in a skirt so it's the route of least resistance.

[LarrytheCucumber]

I taught a pair of boy twins who had everything the same except their underpants (glimpsed when changing for PE). I worked with someone who was always dressed the same as her twin sister and they weren't identical.They hated it.
I suppose it is down to the mother until the children are able to make up their own minds.

[2boys1girlNoPeace]

I have twin boys, and my MIL was a big fan of buying identical outfits (a few other people did too, but MIL was the biggest cuprit) she probably did it simply because I didn't want them to be dressed the same, yes, she is one of those MILS

I never dressed them the same, I didn't want to, just because they are twins does not mean they are the same person though quite honestly with my two they are like the same person split in two
But when they started choosing their own clothes for the day at about 2yo they constantly picked out the identical outfits rather than individual ones. So I let them.
Not my choice, but it wasn't worth arguing about.
While identical, my boys do have slight differences in their features, sometimes you really do have to look though.
They dress differently again now at 8, have done since about 5ish, reverted back to dressing the same (or very similar, ie same top in different colours) when their sister was born, and will revert back to it if one is poorly, or feeling insecure (one had a horrid teacher one year, so dressed the same as his brother every day after school for that entire school year, but differently on weekends)

Also, they have to wear uniform at school, which is surprise surprise identical, so you kind of have to learn which is which by them themselves, rather than the colour of their clothes... Being boys I can't very will stick a different hairslide on them now can I?

So before you hoick up your judgey pants, maybe wonder if it is actually the childs choice, rather than the parents.

I don't get why it is such a big deal, I don't necessarily think it is 'cute' as they are often going for, but I don't think it's something to get worked up over. I was always being told I was a 'terrible' Mum for dressing my twins the same, but at the end of it all, my children were happy, they were healthy, they were well taken care of and very well behaved... I didn't realise choice of clothing could make you a terrible parent, but hey ho

[GertrudeBell]

My DSs (2 and 4) love wearing the same stuff.

When they were smaller I positively tried to dress them differently and they have load of different clothes.

They have decided otherwise. They love being the same (they high five each other, shrieking "matching!"). Who am I to argue?

They love it even more when I wear my matching gingham PJs. DH is yet to be convinced to join us...

[bonkersLFDT20]

My DS2 is in reception with identical girls. They are dressed identically. Mother cannot tell them apart unless she looks directly at them and no one else, from the teachers, class mates and other parents can tell them apart.

They are both known as MaryOrHelen nb. not their real names.

I simply cannot fathom how you could be happy with people not being able to tell your children apart, or even if you did think it was lovely yourself, that you would not see it as important for at least their teacher to be able to tell. I would be really interested to hear the POV from a parent of identical twins. I do see how it would be lovely at times and I do recognise that twins, especially identical, can have a unique bond.

[Stratter5]

The DDs (four years apart) always wanted to dress the same. Not only that, but in the holidays they were joined at the hip with the three little girls next door, and then the whole lot of them wanted to wear exactly the same thing. It led to some interesting overheard conversations when out and about, as Mr and Mrs NDN both worked shifts and it invariably meant that it would be me and MrNDN out and about with them.

The best one was walking to to park when I was heavily pregnant with DD2 and NDNDD3 was about a year old and in a backpack. All four were proudly wearing their favourite dresses that MrsNDN and I had got last time we went shopping, with matching hats. We looked like something out of Sound of Music.

"Tut. Will you look at that poor woman, barely had that one and he's already got her pregnant again. Like rabbits. Tut. Tut tut tut"

[DroppingIn]

And can I just add, perhaps controversially, that having a small gap between DC is not the same as having twins! Twins are developmentally at the same level so will like the same things including clothes etc.

[2boys1girlNoPeace]

I'll also add, we do still now buy everything in twos, just in case, sometimes they wear the same top, sometimes not, but they choose for themselves. I'm not going to tell them to go and get changed so they are different.
They are capable of deciding for themselves whether they want to be dressed the same or not

[mamaabc]

Met a mum with twins who dressed them identically so as not to show any favouritism.

said even if they wore the same outfit different colours, she would prefer say the red top more than blue top, so what twin do you put in your favourite one.

i found it a but strange, but worked for them - everything identical from socks/ shoes to clothes!

[miffybun73]

I think that it's deeply weird, but if people want to do it then it doesn't bother me.

[bonkersLFDT20]

2boys sorry, I hadn't read your response before I posted.

I suspect the girls love to be dressed the same at the moment, but I feel I would want other people to be able to tell them apart.

Most uniforms have some way to personalise them - easier with girls than boys I think, but still, different colour socks even. Did you not mind that people who didn't see them frequently enough to recognise their small individual quirks would not know which was which? I'm trying not to judge, but I simply don't understand why a parent would not want to encourage each of their children to be an individual and part of that is having people know their name.

I really hate having to ask which girl is which. Did that not bother you or is that just one small aspect of having identical twins?

Hope I'm not being too nosey, I'm genuinely curious.

[doughballdoughballdoughball]

I have non-identical twin daughters. I confess to dressing them similarly when I used to take them to toddler groups. It made it easier to keep half an eye on each when the were up to no good on opposite sides of the room

[dawndonnaagain]

Twin girls, 17 now, never dressed them the same.

[parallax80]

I don't claim to know anything abt the developmental issues / non issues but I don't think I'd ever be organised enough with washing etc to pull this off. As soon as one puked or pooed or got wet / muddy and needed to be changed I'd be out of sync and wld prob never catch up. (I guess I cld chance the other one too but too lazy).

although the even lazier part of me wonders if you could just buy eg 10 identical outfits and then they wld always be wearing the same by default?

[doughballdoughballdoughball]

I did once meet a mum of triplet boys who always had them turned out in immaculate matching outfits. I was always at her feat of organisation to get the laundry that much in sync. (Unless she just had 100 copies of the same outfit)