Posting for traffic mainly, hopefully there are some twin mums here!
My twins (16mo) were born by emcs and separated immediately. Both were in incubators. One came home after two weeks but the other stayed in the incubator for a month. For the following month they'd spend an hour a day or so in the same hospital bassinet. That was it really. When the smaller one came home, they both became unwell immediately and we separated them - then the poorly one was readmitted so they were separated for another two weeks.
After this they spent all their time next to each other - shared a cosleeper, napped together in a travel cot, or next to each other in swings or on the play mat. They'd look at and reach for each other and make noises, when they started laughing they'd make each other laugh and so on.
For about the last 3-4 months, they don't really acknowledge each other at all. They play in the same space, eat next to each other etc. They sleep in separate but adjacent cots.
They'll steal toys from each other and occasionally look at the other one. That's it. No laughing, no hugs, no playing. The one who can walk will literally walk over / stand on his brother - the other day he pushed him over and tried to use his back to climb on to the sofa. If he's in the way he will just walk over him or sometimes shove him out of the way (which I never ignore by the way but I don't think he understands at all yet)
I know they're going through a lot developmentally at the moment. They are both now very affectionate towards me and DH, constantly wanting cuddles and to be picked up (the smaller one only started this about a month or so ago - before that he never wanted cuddles). They make good eye contact with us, laugh at things we do, laugh at things on CBeebies, they're both vocal, they're both learning new skills all the time so they are progressing (although the smaller one does seem to have stopped doing things he used to do all the time, like clapping). So why don't they interact with each other? Am I doing something wrong somewhere?
I think perhaps I'm over sensitive about this because I'm struggling with anxiety and because they were separated from each other and me for so long that I worry it's affected their bonding. I spent a lot of time worrying that the little one didn't want to cuddle me at all but that's completely changed now so I'll probably look back and wonder why I worried about this. My HV made a really thoughtless comment about this when I last saw her and it's been playing on my mind a lot I guess.
Sorry this is so long but I can't really find any info on whether this is normal or not. I'm a member of TAMBA so I may contact them to see if this is a concern and whether I should be doing anything to try and help. Can anyone who's been through similar reassure me on this or am I right to worry? I don't know what's a legitimate worry and what's my anxiety any more, especially surrounding all this after such a tough time when they were tiny.
Thanks to anyone who got through all this!