A lot of time has passed since my last twins related post.
As a new mom of twins, I was learning to juggle being a wife, career woman, and mom to three. Now, a half of year later, I feel like I have lived three lifetimes.
It’s been both rewarding and mentally exhausting as we’ve navigated discussion after discussion, hoping we were making the right decisions. One difficult choice we recently had to make was whether the twins would be kept together or separate at daycare.
The twins have been at their daycare since 12 weeks old. From 12 weeks to 20 months, they made every move together. From the infant room to the crawler room, from the wobblers room to the toddler hallway at 18 months, they were always side-by-side. I found comfort in knowing they were together too. While their cribs were on the opposite sides of the room, they were always one-thrown toy apart.
So when I got a note saying my daughter was moving into a different class, my heart stopped. While I always knew the twins could be in different classes, I didn’t think it would happen so soon. They were only 20 months!?
That night during a long discussion with my husband, we talked about the pros and cons and shared insights from the twins in our own lives.
My identical twin brothers who are a year younger than me not only went to the same schools through high school but also had a majority of classes together. Their parallel days led to many shared experiences and even the same circle of friends. To this day, they share a bond that can only be contributed to being identical twins.
On the other hand, my husband and his twin sister didn’t even attend the same schools. They had separate groups of friends, different hobbies, and not as many common interests. While their milestones were parallel like school dances and first dates, people would definitely take them for siblings, but not always twins.
Two sets of twins with a wide range of differences, neither better or worse, just different. So, what was best for our twins? Same classes, same schools, or different schools, different experiences?
The next day I spoke to the daycare director as well as their teachers and they confirmed why we concluded keeping the twins apart was right for our own kids.
Not only was one twin hitting milestones before the other, but they also tended to just play with each other. They played well with the other kids, but had their own banter and played off to the side away from the action. They were also regularly biting each other but no other kids in the class, leading the teachers to believe it was a sibling issue. The teachers also believed that separating the twins would help them thrive as individuals, and we agreed.
So at 20 months, we separated them into two classrooms, and it’s how it will probably be for the remainder of school years.
Although they have different teachers and classrooms, they are still together multiple times a day, including morning drop-off, lunch, snack, and afternoon play. I have found comfort that the times they are together are probably so much sweeter because of a little space and room to grow.
