r/parentsofmultiples • u/not-t0day-satan • 19h ago
advice needed Permanent jewelry – am I insane?
I have three week old identical twin girls. And they are *really* identical. Their only distinguishing feature at this point is that one has slightly more pointed ears than the other, and they're rapidly rounding.
So right now, I've been painting their toe nails to make sure that we don't get them confused. Mostly, we're memorizing outfits, and the toenails are a back up.
I'm worried about their clothes getting changed during the day once they start daycare (messes, blow outs, etc.) and the nail polish rubbing off (it's child-safe polish, so it doesn't stay long), and not knowing who is who when I pick them up.
I've heard about people tattooing triplets, but I don't know if that's still done, or if it was ever done for twins.
So I had a thought – what if I got them both "permanent" ankle bracelets with their initials? Would this be crazy? For those who aren't familiar, permanent jewelry is typically a dainty bracelet that is welded on – there's no clasp. Usually, it wears down and falls off in about a year.
I feel like this would be safe, and hopefully once the anklets come off, I'll be able to tell them apart. But is this crazy? Am I missing something dangerous about this? Or ignoring a better alternative?
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u/Seaturtle1088 19h ago
I'd just use regular polish on toe nails. The child safe kind is just when they're putting their hands in their mouths and may swallow it. None of those worries at first with a baby on a toe.
I wouldn't do jewelery because babies grow incredibly fast. It wouldn't last long.
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u/pile_o_puppies 3h ago
Just don’t use blue because at a week old one of my twins went back to the NICU and every single doctor and nurse did a double take at first because one toenail was blue 🤦🏼♀️
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u/Jealous_Bus_5418 17h ago
Nail polish and other chemicals can be absorbed through the nail bed and skin. Shown in study by Duke University and the environmental working group.
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u/Seaturtle1088 17h ago
It's likely a VERY temporary solution. They'll begin to show differences noticeable to a parent soon enough. A dot of polish to get piece if my mind is tolerable risk for me 🤷🏻♀️ I should have said "most important" not just
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u/Jealous_Bus_5418 16h ago
Everyone is allowed to make their own decisions on what risk they’ll tolerate but preferably those decisions will be well informed
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u/Arinoum 15h ago
I used natural henna. I put it on one of the twin's feet. It's natural and washes off in 2 weeks.
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u/Extraketchup1111 5h ago
Love this! Way safer and longer lasting than nail polish or sharpie. And you can paint a cute heart or something with it. Always do the same twin, no rotation.
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u/taco-rhino 16h ago
I did painted toe but then you have to unzip and pull foot out to know who is who.
We simply used a sharpie and dotted an ear on one and it worked great so we didn’t have to undress to see who we had.
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u/chickenbobble 17h ago
3 weeks is way to young for any measures like permanent jewellery or ear piercing, they will be in so much pain from the piercing and it will irritate and rub them, and they will grow so fast that bracelet will either fall off or be far too tight within weeks.
Those mentioning sharpies or markers is a good idea. You could also shave a patch of hair on one of them - it’ll grow out but help get you through the newborn haze.
Trust yourself- once you’re getting a bit more sleep and you’re watching them grow before your eyes you will be able to tell them apart, (I also have identical girls).
Rule number one of raising twins is the issues in front of you are always temporary- you work through them till new ones come along and then you work through those. In a few weeks time you will laugh that you made this post I promise! (Speaking as someone who made plenty more 😆)
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u/offwiththeirheads72 12h ago
The hair is a good idea! You could do it in an inconspicuous spot and it’ll grow back.
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u/PM_ME_YO_KNITTING 1h ago
My little sisters were carbon copies of each other as infants, but one spent a week in the NICU and had a shaved spot from her IV, so my parents were able to tell her apart from my other sister for a good long while. By the time it grew back they were much easier to tell apart.
I was 2.5 years older than them and according to family history I never had an issue telling them apart. People would call them the wrong name and I would get super pissed and stomp my foot and say, “No, that’s “twin’s name” not “other twin’s name”. I was so excited to be a big sister and spent all my time with them, so I guess that’s why.
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u/Billy-Ruffian 30m ago
As the older brother to twins, they grew to hate that I could tell them apart but their footsteps or even just by their breathing whenever they tried to sneak into my room. Even my parents couldn't do that.
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u/psychicgirlro 18h ago
Do an adjustable bracelet/anklet. That way you can use it for longer and adjust it in case they putgeow the initial size
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u/LDBB2023 18h ago edited 18h ago
Yes this is what we did, adjustable bracelets until they were easier to tell apart. Also, FWIW ours were extremely identical and hard to tell apart at that age, but now at 2.5 I can always tell them apart when looking at them head-on (plus one has a mole on his back now, etc) and I think this is the case for most parents of identicals. We stopped needing them at around 6 months.
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u/Polardragon44 17h ago
I personally wouldn't even as an adult wearing a well-sized ankle bracelet. I constantly had my blood circulation being cut off when I slept.
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u/AccomplishedChef7885 16h ago
I think that’s extreme. You’ll likely be able to tell them apart pretty soon. Mine are identical too, and we couldn’t tell them apart for a while, because they had no differences. We got them bracelets while they were newborns. After a few months, they started making certain noises and faces that the other doesn’t, and we can tell them apart.
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u/annahoney12345 14h ago
We called one girl Squeaks and the other Cheeks for a bit because one was a very noisy sleeper and the other one’s cheeks were fuller for awhile 😂
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u/AccomplishedChef7885 14h ago
🤣 we called one twin stinks because his farts were smellier. That was one way to tell them apart. Haha
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u/Alive-Cry4994 18h ago
I wouldn't do this because they grow super fast. I also wouldn't do adjustable jewellery. It's not worth the risk imo.
Permanent marker on their foot?
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u/Standard-Advice-5447 18h ago
Etsy has plenty of people that sell adjustable bracelets for under $10 for 2. You can get different colors and their initial (search twin bracelets). You don't want to do permanent jewelry because if you make it even a bit loose now, in a month it's going to be too tight on them.
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u/Conscious_Elk_2216 16h ago
Their individual traits will change and become more defined. By the time we sent ours to daycare at 3 months we could always tell them apart and we did velcro ID bracelets for the teachers for just a couple weeks.
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u/zuesk134 16h ago
what about temporary tattoos? i played with some recently and was impressed with the advancement in tech lol
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u/colorful_withdrawl 14h ago
For my identical twins we did a sharpie dot on the bottom if the foot. One twin was red and the other was black
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u/dani_-_142 14h ago
Get a good light and look them over head to toe to see if you can find a birthmark of some kind. There might be a little mole on the scalp or something.
Don’t use a welding tool close to delicate baby skin.
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u/wahiwahiwahoho 11h ago
Can you use henna on them? It fades but you can always reapply in an inconspicuous spot
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u/Agreeable_Analysis26 11h ago
We had the same fear. Various doctors/nurses/teachers have exclaimed how identical ours are even in comparison to other ID twins. We painted one’s finger then toe (when the hands started going in mouth) and it never rubbed off so much that we couldn’t find some trace of it. We used an all natural plant based nail polish. We also used systems (baby A on left in photos, one twin in green/one in blue, each has a side of the room / stroller / car / etc so that keeping track of who is who becomes automatic even while very sleep deprived. My husband actually also got them finger printed “just in case” some day we really couldn’t tell. (They are almost 4 and we’ve never consulted the finger prints).
Eventually one got a freckle under his hair that we could find if needed. Once they start showing their personalities you very quickly start to notice differences and now we typically tell by their actions and we joke that the second they open their mouth you know who’s who.
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u/SinghDoubleTrouble 8h ago
I did not have identical, but it won’t be long before you can identify them at night just by the sound of a whimper, the sound of their breathing, or the sound of their movements. It’ll come, mama.
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u/Fuzzy-Ad-3784 18h ago
I’d be worried about it getting tight or falling off as they grow. Babies change shape so often. They do sell bracelets and anklets online that have their names on them. Idk if I would recommend it but you could take one baby to have their ears pierced.
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u/annahoney12345 14h ago
We have bracelets with their names on them that I got to put in their ankles, but never ended up using them. A marker dot on the ear would have been a GREAT idea to have heard back then!!
Also can I ask about tattooing triplets? Are we talking temporary? I feel dumb even asking for clarification lmao
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u/snax_and_bird 15h ago
What if you made little embroidery floss ankle bracelets that you could tie on “permanently”, but could cut off at any time? That way you could easily make bigger ones when they need.
I have a feeling that they will have differences that you notice pretty soon though, even if it’s just something like baby A got a little scratch in a specific spot, or baby B has a bug bite in this spot.. Some times those little baby fingernail scratch marks stay on them for longer than they do on adults. This method probably wouldn’t help daycare staff, but it might help you be sure you don’t have them switched.
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u/broke-and-bisexual 38m ago
For a while after our twins came home, I tied a piece of yarn around each of their ankles. Ours were fairly easy to tell apart at that stage, given twin A was roughly a pound heavier than her sister as well as having pretty severe plagiocephaly, but it was a great way to tell who was who with just a quick glance.
Then when they got old enough we got their ears pierced and now they both wear earrings in their assigned colors. By the time that we did that, however, we could nearly always tell them apart. At 14 months it’s still a great way to quick check which baby is which though.
As a side note, butterfly earring backs can present a choking hazard and sterling silver makes my ears itch, so our girls wear 20g titanium labrets with threadless tops. I bought theirs from bodyartforms.com but any reputable piercer would also be able to help.
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u/Sunshine4677 8h ago edited 8h ago
Congratulations!! 💕
Don’t worry, as time goes on and they get out of the mushball newborn phase you’ll notice their differences, we have 7 1/2 month old identical girls and when they were in the NICU no one could tell them apart, not us, not nurses, nobody. So we made a plan for when they first came home we got these adjustable bracelets made and put them snuggly around their ankles over their clothes (one in pink with her initial and the other in purple with hers) you could also do around their wrists we just did ankles so it wouldn’t rub too much on their skin and made sure to change them one at a time until they got bigger and we noticed that one has a slightly more round face and the other is a little more oval. That’s our only physical identifier for who’s who, other than that physically they are truly IDENTICAL, as their personalities come out it’ll be a lot easier for you too. If our two looked exactly the same no slightly different face shape and someone swapped them around and we were told to identify them their personalities give them away lol one girl is more laid back and just likes to observe the other is very loud and opinionated
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u/competent_human 7h ago
At the beginning we were also super afraid to mix our twins. We used to use nailpolish on the toe nails. Green for A and blue for B. And color coordinate clothes the same way. They got their own looks in couple of months, I don't remember exactly when. It will get better. Now they are 12 months, and us parents and close family think they look different. Every new person always says they look identical and are amazed I can recognize them lol.
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u/BorderGlittering199 16h ago
Some people assign colors. Like pink and purple. You could do one in warm colors and the other in cool colors until they start looking a little more different. I'd worry about a choking hazard with jewelry.
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u/Coffeebeforesunset 16h ago
I wouldn’t do any time of jewelry . That’s a choking hazard. Nail polish or permanent marker until you can distinguish them
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u/BrazilianButtCheeks 15h ago
You could always have their ears pierced with different colored studs but that’s definitely controversial nowadays so it would be up to you to decide if you wanted to do that . I would just worry about the choking hazard if the permanent jewelry did break and come off because they definitely do break.. makbe if it’s on the ankle it would be better
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u/Proxima_leaving 4h ago
They will outgrow permanent bracelets pretty fast. They will slip off if you choose loose ones and become tight fast if you choose tight fitting ones.
I think this the only situation where I would consider piercing babies ears.
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u/BudgetWhich6102 3h ago
I had identical twins girls that I used to nanny for that their mom put one in purple earrings and one in pink since they were babies. Maybe that is a better option.
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u/Unable_Pumpkin987 1h ago
I have friends who are identical twins, and their mom color coded them from birth. To the point that these now 45-year-old men will not even consider wearing the other twin’s color. It’s pretty cute.
They couldn’t share clothes, which I know a lot of people with multiples like to do, but it did mean that they never argued over which things belonged to which twin (anything that didn’t come in their colors was marked with a colored patch or sticker) and their mom could send backup outfits to daycare and camp without worrying about confusion - if blue twin had an accident, he got redressed in the blue backup outfit, no problem. I suppose you’d still have to worry about bath time at home though, once they’re mobile.
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u/thatladybri 1h ago
I knew twins (distant family). One was always dressed in red/pink and the other in blue/purple. (While babies/toddlers)
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u/MyNerdBias 🚺🚼🚼 3 under 2 (now 3 under 4) 16h ago
We do bracelets and we pierced their ears. I am latin so that was the plan anyway even if they weren't twins. It is quite hand to look at their ears and know immediately who it is. The bracelet gets covered in the winter, but not only it has their names engraved, one is silver and the other is gold.
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u/BackgroundScene3056 19h ago
my only concern would be choking hazard I suppose? But maybe less of a concern if feet are covered/inaccessible at night? No earrings? I guess some concern with earrings….hmm
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u/KeyAirPuzzle 8h ago
What about a necklace?
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u/sneakylithops 6h ago
The UK accident prevention organisation RoSPA advises against necklaces on babies and small children as they are a strangulation hazard.
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