Twins Personalities Switch

Twins Personalities Switch

From Dad's Guide to Twins by Joe Rawlinson, twin pregnancy and raising twins expert

September 17, 2025 · 7 min

About this episode

This episode discusses how identical twins can switch personalities and traits, making it challenging for parents to tell them apart.

We’ve got identical girls and often rely on their mannerisms and personalities to tell them apart. If you rely on this too, or hope to, be careful: twins switch personality traits at will. For example, one of our infant girls would be shy one week while the other was a social butterfly. Just when you thought that was the pattern, they switched and the social standout would cry hysterically with strangers. Go figure. We’ve seen switching of twin personalities and traits from an early age in all these cases: who is a good eater who is a wiggle worm who wakes up first who takes good naps who drinks her bottle in one sitting who smiles at strangers who makes what sounds (when our girls weren’t talking yet) who steals toys from the other So if you want to keep your twins straight, particularly if they are identical, combine multiple data points in identifying each. Combine personality traits and even subtle visual clues to properly identify who is who. It is fascinating to watch the switcheroo happen. Just keep your eyes open and enjoy the journey. Twin dad Todd Courtney observed that his identical twin boys would “flip back and forth” in terms of being…

Topics covered

  • twin personalities
  • identical twins
  • parenting twins

Keywords

  • twin traits
  • identical girls
  • parenting tips

More episodes of Dad's Guide to Twins

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Dad's Guide to Twins podcast page.