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Will your twins personalities be totally similar? Or very different?
From the outside, everybody assumes twins are the same in everything.
The truth is, it’s the exact opposite.
From my experience as a father of twins and talking to many other twin parents, I would say that close to nine out of 10 sets of twins are complete opposite personalities.
Twins are very distinct and different individuals. Only in a very small percentage of times are the twins very similar. This is the same whether you have two girls, two boys, or boy/girl twins. The odds are your twins are going to have very different and distinct personalities.
It All Starts in the Womb
You will start to notice this during the twin pregnancy. Ask mom how she feels the different babies inside her.
- Is one baby more active than the other?
- Is one baby always kicking and pushing and the other one is kind of still?
- Are they both fighting all the time?
These observations will give you a hint of the personalities that they will have after birth.
I know with our girls, one of our girls was very active in utero, always in motion and the other twin, not so much. And turns out when they were born, that same pattern continued where one was a lot more active and always moving and the other was a little more still.
So you may see the same pattern with your twins during the pregnancy. Think of it as kind of a preview of the type of twins that you’re going to get.
(RELATED: Expecting twins? Avoid these 4 critical mistakes expectant twin parents make.)
Always Different
A beautiful thing about twins is that even if they’re identical twins, they’re going to be different.
Even if they share a lot of similar personality traits, they’re still going to be different enough that you can tell them apart by their mannerisms, movements, and speech.
Subtle differences like these will shine out to you as a parent of identical twins. The truth is the personalities of your twins are going to be different and unique. While your twins may share a lot in common (like similar interests), there’ll always be some differences between the two of them.
I mentioned at the beginning, a very small percentage of twins are going to be almost identical in their personalities. But that’s not uncommon and your twins may be that way as well.
An interesting thing that I’ve observed with our twins, particularly when they were younger, is that they would switch personalities. For example, you get used to one twin being more vocal, outgoing, or active and the other twin being kind of more docile. And then before you know it, they’ll switch.
Or you may get used to one twin, who’s good eater, eats anything you put in front of her and the other twin is a picky eater and then you know, after a week of that they’ll switch.
Personalities can be fluid as your twins are growing up. So look for that, as you experience life with your twins.
