should we separate our twins at nursery?

[MamaChocoholic]

our dts are 17 months, and have been in nursery full time since 12 months. apparently at nursery they can be quite naughty. at home they tend to encourage each other, so this is entirely believable! when we had one home for a day, the other was apparently much quieter and better behaved, so we thought we would experiment with trying to keep one or other home for the odd day when possible. dt2 seems ok, but dt1 really misses her brother. yesterday she was upset all afternoon, and kept repeating his name.

so, the question, is it wise to try and separate them to give them a chance to learn to be independent, and learn about behaving better? dp has always been keen on doing this, but I tend to think there's plenty of time for them to learn to be individual as they grow up.

I expect a parent of older twins would be more useful than me, but as a gut reaction, I can't see that actively splitting them up is going to reap that much benefit really.

Their relationship dynamic will evolve as time goes on. So really it seems better that they develop together and learn boundaries as a pair as well as alone, they will often be paired in life cos you can't alter the fact that they are the same age and are likely to end up in the same classes even at school.

It would be crackers to send them to separate schools later in life as the logistics would be a nightmare so you don't want to be in a situation where you can only trust them to behave when they are not together. So some hard work now will be an advantage later - as is often the case with kids.

At least they get on well together - some parents dream of having siblings who get on well together and still have loads of nightmare problems when they are not separated.

Sounds like a good idea, great way to get a bit of 1.1 time with dt's and also may help them used to being apart so when one is ill it wont be such a shook to the system to got to nursery without his /her twin. Can you not give it a go and see how you get on....?

Having grown up with twin brothers, I feel separation is a good thing.

They are not one unit, they are just brothers and you would happily allow brothers born at different times to expect time apart and not do everything together.

They will always remain close but time spent apart will help them to become individuals and not part of a pair

It will be nice for them to have one on one time at home and at nursery

I think you should at least give it a try, they may get used to it and be happier for it.

There are twins at my DDs school and they are in seperate classes. They make they're own friends etc

Our two have always been in the same room at nursery. We were asked if we wanted them in the same pre-school room and we said yes unless nursery had spotted some issues with them being together. As it is, they are fine as they are, they don't stick together and happily ignore each other for parts of the day. Sometimes they choose to go in different rooms for the day as well. DD was ill recently and DH went in to collect her, leaving DS at nursery. He was fine, had a cuddle with daddy before going back to his friends to play. They've just turned 4 and have been at that nursery since they were 6 months old.

I've always found my two (b/g) behave better apart. They've not had too many issues at nursery or at school but I think it can help and is good for them to get one on one time with you. Equally they will have to learn to behave together and I agree there's plenty of time to do that in the future. Doing it for the odd day sounds a good plan to me.

Mine are in reception at the moment and the same class because their school is small and they have a mixed R and Y1 class anyway, we've had no issues with interdependence at all. They've been in full time nursery since they were babies.

We haven't decided on separate or not at school yet. We've still got a bit of time

No, I don't think you should. Yes, 1:1 time is lovely, but they are going to have to cope with being twins all their lives so "artificially" separating them seems quite odd to me. If the only reason you're doing it is because they are naughty or a little bit full on when they're together, I think you need to tackle the behaviour rather than stop them being together at nursery. Even if you solve the nursery issue, what about all the other times they're together?

I have b/g twins too. I think you'll find as they get older, they'll naturally gravitate to different sets of friends, so they'll become less of a "unit" the older they get.

Thanks for some good points.

I tend to feel, like Mandy, that they will naturally separate as they get older. They are b/g so will probably have different circles of friends at school, and the will be in separate classes when they start there. They are fine apart for short periods, but dd in particular seems to miss ds2 a lot when he's not around for more than a couple of hours. I don't want to force it. They rely on each other, I think, partly because they've always had each other, and partly because neither of them gets as much of me as they would if they were singles. While one on one time is good if they're enjoying it, it doesn't seem good if they're not.

I think we will continue with short periods apart, but leave whole days till they're a little older.