As if being a new parent isn’t hard enough, parents of identical twins have to live with the fear of mixing them up. It’s hard to tell identical twins apart no matter their age, but it can be downright impossible to notice the difference as babies when their features are smaller and less distinguished.
To add to the confusion, parents of newborns are often sleep deprived and stressed because of their new arrivals. So they have to be extra careful not to overfeed one or give the other a double dose of medication.
The stress was so intense for a mother of identical twins that she got law enforcement involved.
Today.com reports that Sofia Rodríguez, 25, of Córdoba, Argentina, recently went viral on Twitter after tweeting in Spanish that she had to take her newborn babies to the police department to fingerprint them so she could tell them apart.
“Tomorrow I have to go to the police to have my twins fingerprinted so they can tell me which one is which,” Rodríguez tweeted while joking that she “won the ‘Mother of the Year’ award.” Since she posted the tweet on March 1, it’s received over 15 million views.
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She previously had tied a ribbon around one of the baby’s wrists but cut it off and then lost track of their identities after one got sick. At the time, the babies were just 45 days old. “I never thought I would get them confused—Valentin always (wore) a blue ribbon, but when I realized that it was too small for him, I decided to cut it (off),” Rodríguez told Today.
In another tweet, Rodríguez explained that although the babies may look slightly different in the photos she shared, it’s the lighting. “In the photos, they look different, but it is because they come from different angles or the light…sets them apart,” The Daily Mail translated. “In person, they are the same.”
Foto de los gemelos , tienen 45 días pic.twitter.com/wGYVRzGlLR
— Sofi Rodriguez (@sofiar388) March 2, 2023
A few days after having the children fingerprinted, Argentina’s National Registry of Persons helped the mother distinguish the babies from one another.
Rodríguez’s viral tweet received countless responses from those who have dealt with the same problems as a child or parent.
“I painted the toenail of one of mine to differentiate them,” Conz Preti told Rodríguez, according to Google Translate. “Mine are identical, but they are completely different for me.”
Yo le pinte la uña del pie a una de las mias para diferenciarlas. Las mias son idénticas idénticas pero para mi son absolutamente distintas pic.twitter.com/63hY2uyCme
— Conz Preti (@conz) March 2, 2023
“With my twin brother, we used a bracelet, one on the left and one on the right. The myth says that once we both dropped them and they were reversed,” Manuel Rubina wrote according to Google Translate. “We’re almost 30, and maybe I’m him, and he’s me.”
Con mi hermano mellizo usábamos pulsera, uno la izquierda y otro la derecha. El mito dice que una vez se nos cayó a ambos y nos las pusieron invertidas. Tenemos casi 30 años y puede que yo sea él y él sea yo 🤯 pic.twitter.com/xlmNCK8C7g
— Manuel Rubina (@manuelrubina) March 2, 2023
“With this technique, nothing like this would ever happen,” Julian Guarin added, sharing a photo of babies with different shapes shaved in their hair.
Con esta técnica jamás pasaría algo así. pic.twitter.com/LgYyFu8EDN
— Julian Guarin. (@guaroworld) March 2, 2023
As a parent, especially in the early days, you’ve got to do whatever you can to get by. Rodríguez may have jokingly called herself “Mother of the Year” for having to go to the police for help, but that’s just what great parents do. The Instagram-perfect version of parenting is far from reality, and the great ones aren’t those who get by without any spittle on their shoulders or bags under their eyes from sleep deprivation. The best parents are those who do everything they can to do what’s right for their kids, no matter how it looks.