Don’t Believe The Hype: Your Twins Are Still ‘Individuals’ When You Dress Them Alike

There’s nothing cuter to me than seeing a baby in an adorable outfit, except the sight of two or more babies in matching adorable onesies. I’ve always dressed my twin boys in matching or coordinated clothes, and I’ve never thought twice about it. Wearing the same shirt doesn’t mean I treat them like the same person. While I’m sure as they get older they will have their own opinions that I will respect by letting them pick their own clothes, for now I dress my twins alike because it’s easier, and frankly, because it’s cute.

Fellow mom of multiples Krysta Manning of The Thoughtful Mom did a recent blog post about why she doesn’t dress her triplets alike that was featured on Blog Her. Manning’s reasons for dressing her kids differently are perfectly valid, but they inspired me to think about why I choose to dress my twins in matching outfits.

Dressing my kids the same is just easier for me. At two years old, they are just starting to understand the concept of fairness and learning to recognize animals and cartoon characters. They are also prone to typical terrible two tantrums, so if one of them sees a Mickey Mouse on his brother’s shirt, it’s less work for me to slap the same shirt on him than it is to pull him off when he tackles his brother to take the shirt by force.

I also find dressing my twins alike makes knowing when i should do laundry less of a chore. Doing a quick check of how many “sets” of clothes I have clean makes it simpler, instead of having to count individual tops and bottoms before deciding if I need to throw a load in the wash.

Just to be clear, my kids aren’t dressed alike 100% of the time. If one of them needs an outfit change during the day after losing a round with a bowl of mac and cheese, I’m not going to waste perfectly clean clothes and make the other one change too. Sometimes they pull a particular shirt out of the dresser and demand to wear it. I want to encourage that sense of independence, so I’ll let them wear it, regardless of whether it matches his brother’s or even his own pants.

Manning makes a fair point about being limited when it comes to buying used clothes or hand me downs that match. I try to buy clothing on clearance in various sizes when I can find them and the bigger the size, the more likely I am to buy coordinated items rather than matching ones because I know that one day they may not want to dress the same.

Having struggled with infertility, I’m proud of having twins, and since they don’t look alike, I’ll own the fact that dressing my kids the same is a way of me showing off a bit. It also helps my fellow twin moms identity me as one of their own, and sometimes, having those two minutes of connection with someone in the grocery store can be what I need to get through a particularly rough day.

I’ve run across other moms of multiples who like Manning, make an effort to not dress their children alike and the argument seems to revolve around allowing multiples to develop a their own identity. But being treated like an individual is possible even with my kids being dressed the same. I make sure to refer to them by name rather than as “the twins”, try to give each time alone with me and I nurture their personal preferences. For example, one of my kids loves trains, pacifiers and sweets, the other doesn’t go anywhere without his teddy bear, lights up when he sees Mickey Mouse and will eat salsa spicier than his father can handle. I spent nine years wearing the same uniform as the other kids in my school, so looking beyond clothes to see someone’s personality is easy for me.

The bottom line is that I dress my twins alike is because it makes me happy and at this age, they don’t mind it. Wearing the same shirt doesn’t mean they are treated like a unit rather than individuals, but it does make them cuter to me. Raising toddlers is hard. There’s hardly a day that goes by where I don’t question my ability to make it until bedtime. If dressing my kids alike makes it even a tiny bit easier for me, I’m all for it.

(image:  Christine Langer-Pueschel/Shutterstock.com)