In early March, Sofi Rodriguez tweeted that she had to take her twins to the police station for fingerprints. She couldn’t tell her identical twins apart and needed help figuring out who was who. Rodriguez joked she was winning the “Best Mom” award of the year.
Her viral tweet amassed over 350,000 likes and over 24,000 retweets, including other twin parents and twins sharing similar stories.
How I told my identical twins apart
I knew my twins were identical before they were born. Because I was over 35 when I got pregnant, I took genetic testing to ensure everything was OK with my unborn daughters. One of those tests determined that they were genetically identical.
My initial plan was to pierce their ears when they were born, a tradition in Argentina, and have them wear different colored earrings. But my babies were born in New York City, and the nurses at the hospital said they couldn’t pierce newborn ears.
When we were discharged, I decided to keep their bracelet tags with “Baby A” and “Baby B” for as long as possible. But that plan backfired because they were gaining weight steadily, and the bracelets were tight on their tiny wrists and needed to be cut off.
I decided to buy organic, child-safe nail polish and paint one of the twins’ toenails blue, and the other pink.When we took them for their first haircut, one requested bangs and the other didn’t, so now everyone can tell them apart easily.
“We often recommend keeping these items or choosing one color scheme per child to take the guess-work out of ‘who is who?’” LaCross said.
“As they grow and you get to know your children better, there will be subtle mannerisms, physical features, or personality differences that will help you distinguish one from the other,” she said.
