Modern Family: The Birth Of Haley's Twins Required Complete Silence On Set

Working with infants on the set of a major television show can be difficult. Remember when John Stamos tried to get Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen fired from "Full House" because they wouldn't stop crying? It's certainly not an easy feat, but "Modern Family" co-creator Steven Levitan had a strategy for keeping Poppy (Andie Phoenix Pomeranz) and George (Hunter Dutch Pomeranz) — the newborn twins of Haley Dunphy (Sarah Hyland) and Dylan Marshall (Reid Ewing) — as calm as possible during the hospital scene after Haley gives birth.

Levitan told EW, "Everybody was really nervous, to tell you the truth, because we needed them to be not crying and we wanted them to be comfortable. We really warned everybody, 'Okay, while these babies are on the set, there will be no talking. I don't want to hear a word from anybody.'"

Poppy and George are minutes old in the Season 10 finale ("A Year of Birthdays"), and the Pomeranzes weren't much older than their on-screen personas. In fact, they were only a few days old when brought to the "Modern Family" set. Therefore, Levitan's efforts to keep them from crying didn't always pan out. But when it did fail, Hyland was quickly able to tap into her maternal instincts.

Nerves might have been high having two newborns on the set of a major television show, but "Modern Family" actor Sarah Hyland thoroughly enjoyed the experience. While she didn't have any children of her own during the filming of the episode, interacting with Andie Phoenix and Hunter Dutch Pomeranz allowed her to tap into her maternal instincts. 

She told Us Weekly, "Our two main babies, the girl cries and people get annoyed. But I found a way to always be able to calm her down. I always sing 'Baby Mine' from 'Dumbo,' and she immediately calms down. As long as you just, like, hold her and bounce and sing that song, she always stops!"

That isn't too much of a surprise, as Hyland has proven to be a hit with babies in her personal life, as well. In a March 2022 Instagram post, she gushed about her newborn nephew, saying, "I can't wait to get back home and spoil him rotten."