In 2016, twins Samuel and Ronan’s birth became a riddle for their parents. Samuel was born at 1:39 a.m., and his brother arrived 31 minutes later. Yet somehow, Ronan became the older twin. Thanks to the daylight savings time change that night, Ronan’s official birth time rolled back to 1:10 a.m., making the second-born twin older on paper.

It’s like the age-old debate…Did the chicken come first or the egg? Well, in the case of these twins, both are true. 

While technically, it was Samuel who was born first, at 1:39am, followed by Ronan, just 31 minutes later, the event led to Ronan’s  birth time to be 1:10am, making him older than the first twin. The Daylight Saving time had fallen back an hour, making the twins’ age and lifelong riddle for their parents and family who thought it was kind of cool. 

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For those who are unaware, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a practice that was first implemented during WWI as a method to reduce the use of artificial light. The clocks would be moved one-hour forward in spring and one-hour backward in autumn. Since many are asleep early mornings, the idea was to move the clock ahead so that people get more time in the evenings, allowing them to make use of natural light more, than using electricity during dark hours.

But this is a rare instance when twins are born during daylight saving time. As one of the veteran maternity nurse, Deb Totten at the hospital said, it was the first time she has seen it in more than 40 years of nursing.

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