I occasionally read a blog written by the mother of three-year old identical triplet boys. In every picture, whether it be a point-and-shoot snapshot or a professional job, one boy is wearing red, one blue, and one green.
I have seen her comment that part of the reason she does it is to help people know which boy is which, to keep the boys from constantly having to remind people of their names. I also imagine it gives the boys a sense of possession, one boy knowing the red shirt or cup or bike is uniquely “his”, not to be shared with his brothers.
Our girls are fraternal – “very” fraternal, I like to say – so there’s no trouble telling them apart. (If anything, they themselves are “color coded”, one having blue eyes, and one brown!)
Even so, I have found myself using colors to distinguish certain belongings of theirs. Baby B (with the blue eyes) always gets the blue cup and the blue toothbrush, for example. Day to day, the girls wear any and every color, but in professional pictures, Baby B is often dressed in blue (to match her eyes), and Baby A will wear pink.
I know I am only imparting a fraction of the “color coding” method that the triplet mom uses, but still, I second-guess myself sometimes.
What if Baby A grows up to love the color blue…she looks back through our picture albums and can’t understand why she never had the blue cup, or wore the blue dress? In the middle of their pre-teen angst, what if the girls somehow associate the pink dress as being the “pretty” one, and Baby B feels scorned that she never wore it?
…or maybe I’m over-thinking again…
Do you use any method of “color coding” with your multiples?
Mandy, mother of two-year old fraternal twin girls
I dress the boys alike sometimes but even then we still get ask if they are twins. They look nothing alike. Trace has blue eyes and I do catch myself putting him in blue more. Now that they are a little older I do not dress them alike as much.
My triplet boys do NOT look anything alike either, but we have always color coded them (Yellow-A, Green-B and Blue-C). The main reason we did it was because in the beginning we had so much help and they couldn’t tell them apart. This was a great system to help them out and it was great for the organizational freakish person that I am. When baby boy #4 came along even the triplets wanted to know what color was he going to be? (Red) Almost 7 years later they do still like to have their own colors, but we allow them to pick their own stuff now and sometimes it is their specific color and sometimes it is not. I have noticed if their specific color is not available it is more of a big deal than if all the colors are there! This past fall we decided to paint their room and guess what it is one wall Red, one wall Blue, one wall Green and one wall Yellow!! They love it!! I
I also do the color coding in a couple of different ways. I have fraternal twin boys and I often dress the one with blue eyes in blue colors, however as far as their toys, pacifiers and other items, Baby A always gets the blue one and Baby B gets the red, green or yellow item because “b” comes first in the alphabet for the color blue and it helps me keep track of what belongs to which baby
My twins are nearly 15 and we still color-code to a certain extent. It’s especially helpful as we have a three-boy household. For instance, if a red backpack is left on the floor, I know who to blaim! Color-coding tooth brushes is also helpful as there’s never a mix up in the bathroom.
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