2 Simple Rules For Buying Gifts For Twins

twinsBuying gifts for kids has never been easy for me; if I am not their mother, then it is 100% of the time going to be a shot in the dark. Truth time: if I have ever purchased a gift for your child, it was the college student working at Target who picked it out, not me. I’ve even run into problems buying presents for my own kids. Turns out, there are special rules about buying gifts for twins that I didn’t know about until after I had mine. The good news is, they are very simple:

1. Get two.

2. Those two must be identical.

The End, Love Meredith.

Now obviously this isn’t the same for everything. But when we’re talking about gifts both kids would like, and in particular when we are talking about younger kids, don’t worry about respecting anybody’s individuality. That only leads to screaming.

Let’s say looking for gifts for your friend’s twins. You see an awesome pretend lawnmower that makes bubbles, and decide to give it to Twin A because they can share it with Twin B. Because sharing is caring, right? Wrong. Wrooooooooooooooooong. If the words, “they can just share” enter your mind, please know that you are choosing to inflict pain upon those children’s parents. There will be no sharing. Instead, there will be constant fighting over whose turn it is with the lawnmower. So you got the other twin an awesome bubble wand? No one cares. All they know is that something is awesome, and it has someone else’s name on it, and that will not be tolerated. Or, conversely, it has their name on it and the other twin wants it, which means that they will make sure it is a cold day in hell before the other twin touches it.

Don’t ask. That’s just the way it is.

Also, don’t fall for the idea that twins would rather have two awesome, different gifts than two of the same gift. That’s what normal people would want, but three-year-old twins are not normal people. The need to be unique is not an issue yet. The need for “mine” is huge, however. This leads me to the second rule, which is that when you get two of the same thing, make sure that they are two of the same thing in every way. None of this, “I’ll get one of them the purple turtle and the other one the pink turtle.” No. Stop it. Unless you want yet another fight about the imaginary value of colors, you are getting two purple turtles and that is the end of the story.

It seems like the wrong thing to do. People want to make sure that they are treating twins as individual people with their own interests, and that’s nice. But at least until they’re in middle school, that’s also wrong. Parenting multiples is all about buying in bulk; we live for the two pack. So do the right thing this Christmas, and give the twins in your life two of the same gift. Their parents will thank you for it.

(Photo: Vitalinka / Shutterstock)

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