What if I mix up my twins

WATCH ABOVE: The mixed-up brothers of Bogota — two sets of twins accidentally swapped at birth and just recently discovering their true identities and featured in an incredible article by Susan Dominus from the New York Times. John Hadden explains.

Two sets of twins mixed up at birth. A new New York Times feature tells the chilling story of four boys, growing up believing they each had a fraternal twin when, in fact, their biological sibling was just hours away with another family in Colombia.

Jorge, William, Carlos, and Wilber, dubbed the Mixed-up Brothers of Bogota, are two sets of twins who were separated at birth who only learned of their identical twin’s existence decades later at 24 years old.

In the twisted story told by the NYT’s Susan Dominus, the men stumble upon each other’s existence by chance. Two women head to a butcher’s shop, where one recognizes William, the butcher, behind the counter as her colleague at an engineering firm named Jorge. Her friend insists it’s William, and chalks the similarity up to coincidence.

Story continues below advertisement

Amazing tale of mis-paired twins: raised as fraternals, then reunited with their identicals http://t.co/vmhvFIJCPY pic.twitter.com/Su6tXYhyln

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) July 12, 2015

Months pass, and the pair ruminate about the uncanny resemblance. They decide to show Jorge an image of William – he’s mesmerized. They share the same soft brown eyes, bright smile, hair texture – handfuls of minute details.

He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw one photo of his apparent identical twin.

“Jorge felt a rush of confusion, and then his stomach dropped. The friend sitting next to his double had a face that Jorge knew better than his own: It was the face of his fraternal twin brother, Carlos,” the feature reads.

Jorge and Carlos grew up in their grandmother’s small house in Bogota. Jorge ended up at the engineering firm while his brother worked in accounting. From their humble beginnings in the bustling city, they created comfortable adult lives.

The other set of fraternal twins, William and Wilber, grew up on a remote farm in Santander.

The identical twins were accidentally swapped at birth.

“Sitting beside Jorge in his bedroom, Carlos shut the laptop and fell silent. He headed into his room and closed the door. Jorge followed him, saying things that Carlos knew were meant to make him feel better — no matter what, even if one of us was exchanged, we’re still brothers — but that made him feel only more isolated.”

How do people tell their baby twins apart? Parents have many strategies. Some of them are pretty funny.

laughingjackals98 asked: Parents of twins, how did you make sure you didn't mix your kids up when they were babies and if you did how did you figure out which was which?

Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.

ID bracelets.

My parents made a little purple bracelet that said my name on it and a pink one for my sister until they could tell the difference without it. Sometimes I wonder if the bracelets ever got switched by mistake though...

tmsdnr

This just made me realize that humans can't be identified like a car or anything with a serial number. People don't have bar codes and stuff.

I think I may be really dumb

etheran123

DNA, fingerprints?

MiFengNoMai

Identical twins have identical DNA. Also I can't imagine parents taking fingerprints from their babies when they're born, so I doubt that would work in these scenarios.

sleepyseaslug

Size matters, but so does personality.

When my identical Daughters where still in hospital they wore hospital tags. When we finally got them out of ICU, we were carefully monitoring their weight by weighing them daily. they had a 200g difference in weight consistently for the first many months, (which is fairly significant when you arent much over 1kg) so we always knew.

After the first few months we just knew them, and it has never been hard for my wife or myself to tell them apart, despite being able to confuse most people with ease. The most obvious physical difference we know of is that the one's earlobe is shaped slightly differently, but their personalities are very distinct.

Kyratic

I know of several twins who have anxiety about the possibility of being 'the fat twin'. Now I kind of hope they never read this someday, and realize that you could mainly tell them apart in their infancy because one of them was definitely 'the fat twin.'

garbagecompressor

This should be obvious.

My friend has boy/girl twins. She still gets asked how she tells them apart. Ummmmm.....

marythelpc

"Well this one has a small freckle near her ear, and this one has a penis."

robhawt

"This one will have breasts in about 15 years"

MysteriousPlatypus

"And so will the other."

"You gotta stop feeding them junk food, Fran."

stratosfearinggas

Sometimes mothers always know... or do they?

I'm a preschool teacher. One year, I had 3 pairs of twins in the same class, but only one pair was identical. One of the boys was named Drew, so his mother usually dressed him in blue. "Drew wears blue." His twin wore any other color, but most often red. I was grateful as I could not tell them apart otherwise.

I asked their mother how she told them apart. "They just look different to me."

Mysid

This would take one heck of a steady hand. They're tiny!

My boss had twins, and when they were born, she painted their toenails different colors so she could tell them apart.

carly-rae_sremmurd

Baby toenails are f*cking tiny. I'm impressed she could even do that successfully.

to_the_tenth_power

When everything is identical, even the clothes, it gets confusing.

Aunt of twins here. Babysat them once when they were newborns. My sister brings them over and I had to ask her which twin was which. Keeping Baby A on the left of the living area and Baby B on the right, I had to figure out how to tell them apart because my sister dressed them the exact same, packed the exact same blankets, extra clothes, socks, burp clothes, etc. (evil witch)...I immediately went into panic mode. BUT then I realized I did have a way to tell them apart. I used nail polish to mark X's on their socks. Blue for Baby A and Orange for Baby B (then I wrote it down in case I forgot LOL).

redink85

I feel like parents of multiples are playing on hard anyway, but why do so many whack the difficulty up to insane by putting the infants in matching clothes?

It's cute, but surely it causes some headaches? It's probably easier once they can talk properly though

ChrissiTea

Ohhhkay then.

My parents circumcised me, but not my twin.

Toggafasi

Do you have strong opinions about that now?

Merry_Pippins

A bit jealous of my twin. I wouldn't have chosen to be circumcised given the option, but my parents did their best..

My personal belief is the decision shouldn't have been made for me without medical necessity. Like I shower once or twice a day so it's no benefit because to be circumcised all it would have been is an additional thing to wash.

Toggafasi

What birthmark?

My brothers are identical twins but one of them had the consideration to be born with a bright red, circular birthmark in the middle of his forehead. Very handy.

But I could always tell them apart anyway, even when the mark was covered. They look different to me and always did. Mom used to get me to tell her which was which in pictures where you couldn't see the birthmark.

Katt7594

This parent avoided the problem entirely.

I gave them both the same name so it never mattered.

kirkyesshatnerno

This guy twins.

workedSilly

Why not?

My parents just said whomever started responding to the name they said, that was the kid whose name it was. Hell I could have originally been my brothers name.

Is it possible to mix up twins?

What happens if twins have a baby with other twins?

How much harder is raising twins?

Should you put twins in the same room?