Should I tattoo my twins to tell them apart? One dad's desperate plea

Thrywdad, as the dad is known on Reddit, says that the boys are so exactly alike, their grandma has, unsurprisingly, already got Adam and Aaron mixed up and given the wrong boy the medication – which resulted in both children being very sick and one taken in hospital.

Dad says even he and mum can't tell the twins apart – and, while they've tried umpteen tricks to help them know who's who, nothing's worked so far.

They tried a dot of permanent marker but that irritated the baby's skin, or rubbed off in the bath, and, he says, they "have tried other things but nothing else worked". He mentions nail polish/bracelets/anklets but, for various reasons not explained in his note, they seem to have given up on these (we're supposing the nail polish wears off and the bracelets and anklets get accidentally displaced when the babies' clothes are changed?).

In his desperation, the dad now wonders if a tattoo could be the answer and asks if anyone else has resorted to this to tell which baby is which.

Here's the post in full:

Luckily, most of the replies he's received have been really positive, and nearly everyone seems to agree that the tattoo option is a good idea.

"When I saw the title of this post, I thought, 'Who the hell would tattoo their kid?'," says one poster, "but, after reading how serious mixing the twins up can be, I absolutely think it's justified. The short term pain of a small dot tattoo is much better than losing one of them. I wouldn't hesitate to do the same thing in your situation."

Another added: "A tiny tiny tattoo in an out-of-the-way place sounds like a completely reasonable thing to do. It wouldn't hurt much more than a shot, and would probably require almost no aftercare. You could probably get one that looked like a freckle."

Oh, it's a difficult one! Here at MFM HQ, we do think tattooing your baby does seem like rather an extreme measure (and it is actually an offence in the UK for a tattoo artist to ink anyone under the age of 18). But we also totally get the father's thinking in this situation: we hope you find a solution that works and keeps those little ones healthy, Dad!

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