529's have to be opened in each child's name with a parent as custodian.
We were told we could open 1 in our son's name as beneficiary (I was pregnant with #2 when we did it, so we asked these types of questions) and we could change the beneficiary to whoever we wanted as many times as we wanted (as long as they were qualified.. we couldn't change it to the kid down the street or whatever, but another one of our children would be qualified).
So he advised us to only do 1, and we could use it for both kids (and ourselves, since we're both in school). The financial adviser that did it for us has twin daughters and said he did this for them, too.
That way if 1 kid doesn't go to school, you're not stuck paying a penalty to get 'their' money from the account, you just let the 2nd kid have it. Or vice versa.
Maybe it varies state-by-state...
But I know he definitely told us to make Lucas beneficiary for now, we could take what we need for his 1st year, then the next year we pull what he needs for his 2nd year, then we change the beneficiary to baby #2 and pull what they need for their 1st year. He said it was easy to do.
