We are thrilled to welcome Stephanie from And Twins Make 5 as our new monthly guest writer here at the perch!
A bit about this amazing momma:
Stephanie attended the University of Iowa where she met her husband of 17 years. She and her family of 7 live in the Chicagoland area. She has a 14 yr. old boy, a 10 yr. old boy, an 8 yr. old girl, and 8 month old twins. She’s a stay at home mom who has dabbled in web design, stock photography and digital freelance illustration work. She recently started her own blog called And Twins make 5!, in hopes of helping other parents of twins.
And Twins make 5! is a product review site with an emphasis on products for twins. Realizing shopping for twins can be difficult, and reviews from twin parents are extremely difficult to find, Stephanie started her own site. The goal of this site is to help you quickly find the items you need and, by reading the reviews, decide if it is the right one for you and your twins. Singleton parents are welcome too.
The twins at "And Twins Make 5!"
Embrace the differences in your twins, but avoid labeling them.
Families of twins often struggle to avoid labeling their twins. Let’s face it, when you have two of anything side by side, you start searching for difference between the two. Many twins have subtle and not so subtle differences. Some of these differences are physical and some are in their personality traits. Once a family of twins starts noticing all these differences it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid placing labels on them. Even if the parents manage to avoid the labels, visitors will ask things such as “which one is the fussier one? Bigger one? Friendlier one? Or even the Cuter one?”
I find it fascinating how different my own twin baby boys’ personalities are. Thinking back on it, I realize that some of these differences were evident even when they were still in my womb.
In my third trimester with my twins, my doctor ordered weekly non stress tests at the local hospital. I’m told these typically can be completed in 20 minutes. However, mine usually lasted a couple hours, and sometimes ended in an unscheduled ultrasound to see if everything was ok in there.
Twin A was usually the one responsible for these non stress test delays. Not because he was some sort of little “trouble maker”, but because he was such a laid back little guy. Regardless of what chaos was going on around him, Twin A would typically sit back and relax. While I just love this about him now, it made for a stressful series of non-stress tests. In contrast, Twin B was constantly in motion in my womb. It seemed like he was always kicking, punching, and wiggling.
Once the twins were born, these differences emerged even more. I found I could tell their cries apart from one another within a week or so. Twin B has a more demanding loud cry when he woke up. Twin A’s cry is a bit softer almost more patient unless it goes unanswered for what he deems is too long. I could go on and on with their different little quirks. Twin B usually needs to be fed first. Twin A is typically smiling and flirting with all our family and friends while Twin B stares pensively stare everyone, as if taking their actions in for further analysis.
You may find yourself asking, if they are so different what’s the real harm in labeling? The harm is that babies change. They become toddlers and toddlers become young children. As your little ones change and grow they need the freedom to change. Labels can stick and make it difficult for your twins to escape the category you have assigned each one.
With that being said, you may learn valuable parenting information if you take note of your twin babies differences. Often these differences provide valuable clues as to what each of them may need.
In my case, I learned that at bedtime, Twin A prefers I just lay him down in his bed with his binkie and his lovie. He gets himself to sleep in 5 minutes. Now that he is a bit older, we find he often turns on his music soother as part of his routine. We also learned that Twin B requires more rocking and cuddling from us. His lack of independence from the start indicated to us he might really need to be swaddled when being put down to sleep. We also learned that his more pensive dependent nature meant we should hold him when a stranger meets him.
Enjoy your twin babies, do your best to avoid labels, celebrate them for their differences, and be grateful for the very special bond they will forever have in common.
Stephanie Manner Wagner
Find Stephanie blogging at And twins make 5!
Thank you Stephanie for giving me the day off. It's my birthday ( Donna) ! I enjoyed reading your post and look forward to many more twin stories. Your boys are amazing and so are you. Thank you for including us in your journey.
Donna and Heather
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Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 11:19AM 
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