One mom has shared her hack for identifying her identical triplet sons, and it’s pretty clever…
Becoming a mom is hard work in itself, but becoming a mom to triplets is a whole other kind of stress. You might be wondering, ‘what is the biggest obstacle parents with triplets face?’
Apart from the obvious… it’s telling them apart!
However, one mom has shared her ingenious hack for identifying her identical triplets; James, Henrik, and Thomas, and it involves color coding.
When mom, Crystal Hasselquis, gave birth to her 3 sons, she was worried that she’d get their names mixed up. To help her figure out a way to tell them apart, she asked her NICU nurse for her thoughts.
“It really started off with me being completely afraid of mixing them up and having to live with that the rest of my life — not knowing who was who. I mean, yikes, who wants that on their conscience?” she admitted to Buzzfeed.
She continued: “One of the first suggestions was having them wear a bracelet. That idea for me wasn’t ideal because bracelets can be easily removed. So we kept searching for something to calm my fears.”
“In the early days of the NICU, I noticed the left ear on each baby was formed slightly different and the head shapes were a little different. I didn’t know if those features would change as they continued to grow and develop, so I kept thinking,” Crystal said.
Then Crystal came across a Facebook group for moms with triplets, where a mom had suggested painting each baby’s big toenail a different color. The boy’s aunt, AmyJo posted a video of the result on TikTok.
“The first few months of having the babies at home, the toenail polish was helpful for everyone,” AmyJo told BuzzFeed. “There were a lot of family members in and out of the house, passing babies around the room, changing babies’ clothes, etc., so it was always nice to have a backup to confirm who was who.”
Now the boys have grown a little, they’re easier to tell apart by their personalities. “Henrik is a leader who loves giggling, James is a sweetheart who is always smiling, and Thomas is a thinker who loves books,” Crystal said.
She added: “We still use their colors when we dress them and color code other things for them. This is mainly helpful for daycare and friends and family when we send pictures or they help out. The toenail polish was more helpful when the babies were really little and changing every week. Now it’s really just the backup for when someone is second-guessing who is who.”
How clever!