My niece and her husband had twins this past January (adorable by the way!) The holidays are around the corner and I want to send presents. I was thinking of a sit-to-stand walker and another toy such as stacking blocks, sending the gifts to the pair to share.
But it occurred to me this might not be a great idea, that each is their own person and shouldn’t be treated as part of a pair. So I thought I’d ask the wisdom of those that have twins or twin relatives, what do you think?
I think it really depends on the parents. I have twins, but they’re #4 and #5, so I was pretty chill by the time I had them. I was fine with them sharing a gift when they were little, and if 2 gifts would rather have 2 different things that they could share, they didn’t need 2 of everything. Blocks are probably my favorite toddler toy, my kids played with them for many years (I still have them). Books too.
D has 2 D’s 2 years apart and seriously they play like twins. I gift them 2 stuffies that are the same but other than that they share all their toys. One has a preference for one toy and the other usually has a preference for a different toy. Kind of like daycare.
I agree that when they are a bit older, you want to treat them as individuals, not half of a set. But babies and toddlers don’t care, and their parents might not want multiples from a space point of view. I have a lot of nieces/nephews and everyone gets a book, even the two sets of twins. Twins do not receive the same book, and nobody gets a present after they graduate from high school (they have a 12 yr span of ages) I do actually keep a list in a notebook
My #3 is 22 months older than my twins, my 22 and 24 year old daughters shared everything, a room, all clothing, shoes, makeup, jewelry, coats, socks… All of their friends couldn’t wait for the day of division, when the older one went away to college, and they had to split everything. Now they’re both here and it’s a free for all again. My 29 year old daughter also wears the same sizes as them, and tends to walk away with new to her stuff when she visits.
I have twin granddaughters. First kids for the parents as well as my first grandchildren.
For bigger items like a walker, sending one to share is fine. Just because they’re twins doesn’t mean they will hit their developmental landmarks at the same time. Or that they will show the same interests.
(One of the our twins was obsessed with the walker and walked back & forth, back & forth with it for a couple of weeks before giving it up and walking by herself. Her sister never cared to use it at all and walked about 5 weeks later than her twin.)
For something like the blocks, also sending one set is fine for now because they will share. They won’t usually be playing with the same items at the same time at this age. Or, if you can, send a slightly larger set if one’s available so each can have some of the blocks to play with.
Honestly, getting doubles of everything for twins just leads to having too. much. stuff.
As the twins get older, however, they will begin to develop separate interests and identities (usually around age 3 or so)–and THEN you need to send separate gifts because they’re old enough to think “this is mine and that is yours.”
We have twin grandsons. For their first Christmas, we gave one of a kind gifts that my daughter requested. Since they live in Copenhagen, there are other gift giving challenges, but we flew there for their first birthday and gave them similar but different gifts.
For Christmas, we flew there and gave them a play kitchen they share, and then four other gifts that we bought duplicates of. Our daughter purchased them there so we didn’t have the confines of fitting gifts in luggage.
Going forward we will continue buying duplicates until they establish differing interests. Flying there to give gifts, even if they are here for Christmas, gives us a lot more flexibility. Last year our daughter practiced packing their suitcase with the gifts they were going to get, before flying here.