Mom Admits She's 'Not Entirely Sure' She Didn't Mix Up Twins in Hospital

A mom of twins has opened up about the moment she and her husband may have inadvertently mixed up their two baby girls.

Nicole Giamundo from Denver, Colorado, made the light-hearted confession in a TikTok video responding to another clip asking "if you mixed your twins up how would you ever know?"

Giamundo has been a mom to twin girls Nora and Adalynn for over a decade now, having given birth to them all the way back in January 2014. During that time, she's faced any number of weird and wonderful questions about what it's like to have twins. "People are very curious about twins in general," she told Newsweek.

The first few years of parenthood are considered among the most tiring and stressful by parents today. A 2023 Pew Research Center poll found that 57 percent of respondents with children in the youngest age group said they found being a parent tiring all or most of the time.

By comparison, 39 percent of those whose youngest child is five to 12 years old and 24 percent of those whose youngest child is a teenager said the same thing. Similarly, while 35 percent of those with a child under the age of five said parenting was stressful all or most of the time, that percentage dropped to around 25 percent among those with children aged five or older.

But while having one child under the age of five might seem stressful to some, having twins added a whole new dimension to proceedings for Giamundo and her husband.

"I don't believe I was stressed," she said. "I think I was more shocked at how unprepared we were. I was also exhausted and struggling with some of the medications they were giving me. Having twins was very hard as first-time parents. Having one baby is hard but throw in a second one and it's chaos."

That might explain why she responded to the original TikTok video with the story of how they may have ended up mixing up their two newborns in the hospital. " As a parent of twins I get asked all the time if I can tell them apart, have we mixed them up etc," she said. "So I was sitting at the kitchen table and just told a snippet of something that happened to us in the hospital because now we laugh about it and it took off."

In the clip, Giamundo explained how she "thinks" they ended up potentially mixing up their two girls with each other in the hospital. According to the video, despite being given two separate bassinets for the two babies with their names clearly marked on them, she admits there was a point when both she and her husband were holding a baby each and found them suddenly asking one another: "Who do you have?"

"Because at that point we were sleep deprived," she explained. "It was a lot having two babies and so we're not entirely sure we didn't mix them up." She concluded: "We'll never know, they're identical."

Giamundo acknowledged the clip "created some controversy" with many viewers questioning how this could happen but she insists she's not the only one to go through something like this. "I am not the only mother of multiples that has had a similar experience," she said.

Since then, Giamundo said they took steps to prevent any mix ups by introducing a "color code" to tell them apart. "Adalynn was purple and Nora was pink. Their car seat covers, clothes etc were matched up to that system," she said.

That hasn't prevented the occasional moment of doubt though. "They look so much alike that sometimes we would have to take a second look to make sure we were really sure on which baby we had," Giamundo said. "Even today there are times I mistake one for the other."

Despite that initial "chaos," Giamundo is pleased to report that having twins has gotten a little easier. We created a very strict schedule and stuck to it and that helped immensely. We also have a lot of family nearby and everyone helped us a lot," she said. "As they are now 10, it's a little easier since they are self sufficient."

However, the mix-ups still happen sometimes. "Just the other day I thought Nora was laying in my bed as I saw her side profile only to discover it was Adalynn," Giamundo said. "They keep us on our toes for sure!"

Ultimately, if Giamundo could offer one piece of advice for any parents of new twins out there it would be "not to stress about the little things."

"If you're having identical twins, plan on painting a toenail or some sort of identifying mark for a while. Keep them on a schedule for your own sanity and enjoy the ride!!"