Twin bond

My ID twins just turned one. They don't seem to have any sort of "bond" or anything. They play sometimes, but mostly they just steal toys and fuss at each other.

Am I expecting too much?

 

Yup! Playing together rather than next to each other (parallel play) is a developmental milestone and doesn't usually happen till after their 2nd birthday.

 

The second year was not the twin bond I expected either. They are just getting good at playing together in the last year.

 

Yeah, at a year, not much together play going on. Even at almost 4, my boys have a love-hate relationship. One minute they are playing, hugging, saying they love each other, etc., and the next minute they are fighting over a toy.

 

My boys turn two tomorrow and just this week they have started chasing each other around! Up until now they would either ignore each other or steal toys from each other. We've been waiting a long time for them to play together and it's fun to see them finally acknowledging each other's existence.

 

The boys have always had an extreme bond. They have never wanted be in a different room or if I was carrying them up or down the stairs the other one would cry so I just started carrying them both up and down together. They have always been fine alone in a room together so I can leave but if I take one of them with me the other one just cries. If one of the boys goes somewhere and the other stays home it is a nightmare. The one that stays home cries the whole time. The one that leaves is fine because he is going somewhere. They have been this way since they were tiny. They slept in the same crib for the first 6-8 months and then they slept in separate cribs that were side by side. Last week one of them started crib jumping and sleeping with his brother peacefully but then after a few nights he started stealing his brothers special binky and blanket and laughing about it so I had to pull their cribs apart. The crib jumper was really mad and cried because he can't jump in his brother's crib but that is life.
 
I don't know if it has helped their twin bond but every day they have a together/alone playtime where I leave them in their playroom together with the door shut for 45 mins to a hour. I basically leave them completely alone to duke it out. It seems to have worked really well and they now get along really well and I just tell them it is playroom time and they walk right in and I shut the door. When they were younger and still had 2 naps I did it twice a day for a shorter time. I think when they are alone they pay more attention to the fact that there is another baby in the room.
 
They don't have any siblings so that might make a difference.
 
When they go to Pre-K they are going to be separated so I am not worried about them in the long run but they are going to be friends for life.