fatherhood

Having twins is unarguably a wild ride straight from the get go, but having identical twins is a whole other layer of fun. Two babies at once who look exactly alike right down to their little DNA strands and who share a bond like no other on Earth? It's an adventure for sure.

People like to joke about mixing up identical twins, and twins themselves will often play practical jokes swapping identities on people who can't tell them apart. But what happens if a parent literally loses track and doesn't know which baby is which? Does that actually happen? And what do they do if it does?

A video from @thetwinniesmom shows her twin babies dressed in identical "BEST BUDS" shirts with the text, "They don't know it yet but in 30 minutes I will be taking them to the hospital because I mixed them up." It got nearly 9 million views and thousands of comments.

The post was hash tagged as satire and comedy, but judging by the comments that poured in, mixing up identical twin babies is a real thing that can happen, and more easily than you might think. As one commenter wrote, "Do I have twins? Nope! Did this unlock a new fear? Yep!"

People's personal stories of twin baby mix-ups show how it happens:

"My identical twins bracelets fell off beside one another at about a week old...I made a good guess...lol. Twin A may now be twin B."

"My mother left my father home alone with my twin sister and I once when we were infants. He took off our bracelets to bath us. My mother came home during the bathing process, took one look at the bracelets and asked if he knew which twin was which. Look of horror, and then a stab in the dark. So, I might not have the name I was given at birth."

Newborn babies have bracelets with their identity on them, but once those come off parents are on their own.Photo credit: Canva

"My father's baby book says that he was born first, and that he was the heavier twin. He and his twin brother were looking at it one day and my grandmother remarked that that couldn't be right -- she remembered the doctor being surprised because the heavier one was second. Those two have been mixed up since day 1."

"This actually happened to a pair of twins I know, they only found out around age 17 because of an invisible physical variation (I cannot remember what it was, but it occurred to the second twin during birth, torn something or other) that supposedly belonged to X that belonged to Y. The names switched between the hospital and home."

"I have a friend with identicals. She kept nail polish on one's big toes to tell them apart. To her dismay, at 2 months old, the nail polish wore off before she could reapply. They are older now and have extremely different personalities. But she took a leap of faith and called one A and the other B though she wasn't sure. Still not sure, lol."

"I once fed the same twin twice.🤣 They were a few days old. 😬🥰"

Feeding the same newborn twin twice? It happens.Photo credit: Canva

Some twins shared that they may have been switched without knowing.

"I'm a twin who was supposedly born having seizures for days. I am now 'fine,' while my sister gets seizures, severe migraines and has two autoimmune disorders. Forever wondering if we got switched. Our drs insist I just grew out of it 😭 They SWEAR our bloodwork matches up."

"Identical twins here 🤣 I always liked my sisters name better. Maybe it was mine first. 🤔"

"My twin and I were raised by hippies. I’m pretty sure they have no clue to this day who’s who."

"My mom used to say that only my older sister could definitively tell my brother & I apart as babies when both she and my dad struggled. My sister is only 18 months older than us, so I suspect the validity of this, and that she may have just been randomly picking and may parents took her judgement as truth."

baby twins GIFGiphy

It's actually totally understandable that parents would mix up twins. Parental instincts can only go so far, and when you're trying to manage life with two infants at once, phew. But people did share methods for trying to keep them straight:

"I always wonder if I mixed up my twins they look different now, but when they were little, they looked identical I didn’t take their hospital bracelets off for like a month because I was so scared, I was gonna mix them up."

"I painted one of my twins’ big toenail green because his name is Seth and i could remind myself Seth Green, like the actor. This worked until they both ended up being transported to the hospital in an ambulance without me and by the time I got there, the polish was removed for a pulse ox monitor. I worried for months that they had been mixed up, but finally spotted the tiniest fleck of green on Seth’s toenail as it grew out. 😅"

"My mirror image identical twins were 6 ounces apart, I had to weigh them to see which was who lol."

It's not easy to tell identical twins apart if they don't have any distinct natural markings.Photo credit: Canva

"I saw someone say they put temporary tattoos on one baby."

"My husband is a twin. His mother put a dot of nail polish on his twin’s big toe nail until they were like 4. lol"

"Simple trick : get a fingerprint reader, could be an old iPhone for example. Register the fingerprints of only one of the twins. In case of doubt, scan both of them, the one who unlocks the iPhone is the good one (the other one is the evil twin of course)."

""If I had twins they’d definitely wear specific color wristbands until I could finally figure out which is which.""

"I’d mix them up and just start using their names interchangeably until they were old enough to tell me."

Identical sneezesGiphy by America's Funniest Home Videos

And really, at the end of the day. does it really matter if they get switched around as infants? Barring any known health issues, it's really just a name.

"I'm an identical twin. If our parents ever mixed us up and we've lived our whole life as the wrong one, it's no big deal. 😁"

"I’m a twin and this is what I’ve always said! 😂 It doesn’t change who you are if you were mixed up at some point, just your name lol."

"I asked a friend of mine how she could tell her twins apart when they were a few weeks old. She said she couldn’t a lot of the time and just figured whatever name they had when she could tell them apart would stick. I strive for that level of laid back."

Seriously, having twins is such a wild ride.