By Daniella GrayShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberA sleep-deprived Utah dad was suddenly wide awake when he realized what—or rather who—had stopped his baby from crying.
Michael Bangerter, 35, captured what happened during the early hours of the morning. One of his twins, with whom he shares with 33-year-old husband Josh Valdez, wouldn’t stop crying.
“At that hour, my brain was operating at about six percent battery and all I could think was, what on earth is wrong?” Bangerter told Newsweek. “She was fed, changed [and] dry—everything should’ve been fine.”
...With both Lincoln and Lola on his chest, silence finally fell upon the house, seemingly out of nowhere. When he looked down, the reason became clear: Lincoln had wrapped his tiny hand around his sister’s.
“When I looked down and saw they had found each other’s hands, I got chills,” Bangerter said. “It was one of those moments where exhaustion and emotion collide and suddenly, you’re wide awake.”
While Lincoln and Lola have shown signs of connection since their earliest days—Bangerter remembers how they calmed whenever NICU nurses placed them side by side—this was the first time he’d seen one twin intentionally comfort the other.
“It was like their own little twin superpower activating,” he added.
The experience has subtly reshaped how Bangerter and Valdez navigate those sleepless newborn nights. The couple tries to hold onto the perspective that these exhausting stretches are fleeting, even if that doesn’t make 3 a.m. any easier.
“Sometimes the sweetest... memories happen in the middle of the chaos,” Bangerter said. “Doesn’t mean we’re any less tired, but it does remind us that sometimes the hardest parts of parenting make the most meaningful ones.”
Bangerter shared the heart-melting moment in a reel on Instagram (@thetwinstadads) which has amassed over 520,000 views.
In the comments, many other parents resonated with those in-the-trenches moments.
“You got this! Nights are long but the years are short,” one user encouraged.
“My twin and I slept together as babies and shared a room growing up. It’s a bond that is comforting like no other that is hard to describe,” another added.
Bangerter and Valdez hope their twins, now 2 months old, will one day look back and feel proud of how they comforted each other. They also hope the memory serves as evidence of the love that framed their lives from the start.
“Our family isn’t the ‘traditional’ family, especially where we live, but love is what makes a family, and this moment is such a perfect reminder of that,” Bangerter said.
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