To be upset at not having newborn pics of me

[Verbena37]

Until a few years ago, I hadn't really over thought about it in too much detail but I've been aware from a teen really that my parent's first baby pictures of me start from around 12 weeks.

Not a single newborn picture, not one.
Considering my grandfather took tonnes of pics of family.....before I was born and after, I'm surprised he hadn't taken any of me either. No relatives have any newborn pictures of me, I don't think.

My mum was given bed rest for pre eclampsia ten days before she had me and stayed in hospital for ten days after......as was the norm in the late 70's.

I've chatted to them about why they didn't have a camera (they said they probably didn't) for such a momentous occasion as a first baby birth and they just brush it off. However, there is a photo of my mum quote heavily pregnant with me in Scotland so someone took that and I had assumed it was my dad.

I'm pretty certain I'm not adopted as I look very much like my cousin and my grandparents on both sides but I find it strange that they had newborn pictures of my sister only two years later.

Is this rare do you think or is it common? Do lots of you have no newborn pics of yourselves? When I try to talk to my parents about it in a lighthearted "perhaps I'm adopted" type way, they laugh and brush it off as funny and that they hadn't really thought about newborn pictures. I just find it very odd.

[liz70]

Earliest one of me that I've seen is about 18 months/2 years! I've never really given it much thought, tbh.

[LittleBearPad]

But people didn't take photos then like they do now. I probably have as many of my 1 and 3 year old largely on my phone as my parents have of me in total.

I have no idea about my baby pics.

[Yankeetarts]

Earliest ones of me are about 4 or 5

[SylviaWrath]

I only have a handful of photos of myself as a child, none as a newborn. DH and his siblings don't have any tiny baby pics either, apart from the last much younger one.

I'd say its totally common. I don't know how old you are but people in general didn't use to have cameras, photos were not something you took a lot of. Plus even when there were pics, they can get lost or damaged or whatever. Even with my children, there are very few of my eldest, born long before camera phones, than of my youngest.
I've certainly never considered it something to be upset about!

[BertrandRussell]

Cameras were expensive and so was film processing. Maybe they couldn't afford it?

Maybe your mum was more poorly than she likes to think about now?

The automatic habit of taking pictures of everything is very new.

Your birth certificate will tell you whether you're adopted, by the way, if that is a serious concern.

[TeenAndTween]

I don't think that in the 70s people were so fussed about capturing every single thing on camera. What's more, it's only getting worse ...

Can just imagine in a few years:
AIBU
"there are no pictures of me eating my first chocolate"
"there are no pictures of me getting into a car for the first time"
"there are no pictures of us eating our meal on our 3rd night on our holiday"
"there are no pictures of me sitting watching Ant & Dec"

[liz70]

And no pictures of me straining my first jobbie out into my potty.

[anotherbusymum14]

Not many of me either until about 2 years old. Something about the times in the 70s I suppose.

[Wolpertinger]

Can I ask how old you are?

I'm 40 and growing up a camera film in our family was a very precious thing. There are some pics of me that are soon after birth but no classic mum and newborn covered in stuff - it just wasn't the in thing then I think.

And I've not seen this photo for ages and there's a good chance my mum has thrown it away - my parents would find the whole desire to photograph everything baffling. They even left their wedding album in the loft and then chucked it as mice had eaten it.

So we have a few pictures of me growing up but they didn't buy every school photo for example as they were far to expensive. A holiday would use a single roll of film - 36 photos only for a week!

They were just very different times.

[sparechange]

My parents were monumentally lazy and disorganised so very few pictures exist of me and my siblings as children.
If they took them in the first place, I don't think they got round to developing the films, because there wasn't anywhere near us that did it. I remember sending off envelopes of films to those mail order services, but it was a very occasional thing.

I've seen one photo which I'm told is me as a newborn, but it is my mother sat in a hospital bed with a crib next to her, so it could be me or it could be a sibling. My mother doesn't look too pleased about having her photo taken either - there really was a time when we didn't all want to record every single second of our lives on film!

[Trills]

YABU and paranoid.

[peggyundercrackers]

sounds quite normal tbh. people aren't normal nowadays wanting to capture every little thing on camera or video. in the old days people would help you if you fell over or were attacked or hurt - now they just take pictures of it happening - its sad world we live in.

[LikeDylanInTheMovies]

Put yourself in that situation. You are ill and have endured a long and painful labour.

Would you want your husband's priority to be a) making sure you and the baby were alright and looking after any other siblings at home b) Frigging around trying to borrow a camera, flashbulbs (remember them) film etc.

Plus as others have said, the mania for capturing things on film or photo is very much a recent thing.

[Wolpertinger]

Just spotted your reference to late 70s - so I am mid 70s. I think your parents are just normal for the times.

Maybe your grandparents had the camera but your parents didn't - and just by chance your grandparents were around more at the time your sister was born?

Also if your mum was poorly, your dad and grandparents probably didn't get to visit much. Dads as birth partners wasn't much of a thing then, there would have been strict visiting hours and so on. My mum was very ill during my birth and my dad was just thrown out of the room, no questions allowed and no-one bothered to update him on what was going on until it was all over. He was stressed but thought that was quite normal and the doctors needed to get on with it.

[Wolpertinger]

Oh god yes, flash bulbs! Had forgotten them.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheChocolateGoes]

I've seen one of me as a baby, not newborn though. My family aren't really ones for looking through albums of photos, I know my parents have got some photos going back to when they married in the 60s, I've seen the odd one, but I don't think I've ever seen an album in their house, not even of their wedding photos. Our wedding photos have been in the loft since about 6 months after we got married too, but we do have some of the DCs who were born in the digital age.

[Footle]

It's a rather big jump from "can't find photo" to "there must be a secret they're not telling me".
Grandad with camera had a cold and couldn't visit ?

[LuisSuarezTeeth]

I just don't think it was a thing to take photos of newborns then. There's none of me.

Just ask about the adoption thing but my instinct is that you're over thinking it.

[Olddear]

My first pic is of me when I'm 1, although I was born in the late 50's so I'm older than you. We really only had photos taken on holiday and of course school photos.

[bookishandblondish]

I was born in 74. My dad was an avid photographer - spent a fortune on film/ camera. There are no newborn photos of me because my dad wasn't at the hospital when I was born - and when he went to see me/ mum, he forgot the camera.

There are loads of me as a baby - but none until I got home. My brother got it worse - there's very few of him as a baby, partly because he screamed constantly and partly because my dad couldn't afford as much film processing.

[corythatwas]

Dh was born in the 60's, very loving, very close family: the only photos we have are a handful taken by a visiting uncle when he was about 2. The only photos of his older brother were clearly taken at the same time. Doesn't mean a thing; it's just how things were. Cameras were for people with a special interest in photography (and the money to spare).

My parents were obsessive photographers with an interest in archaeology, had their own darkroom, took pictures throughout our childhood. But that was unusual for the time. And even so, they could not afford to develop all their pictures at the time: my mother who is in her mid-80's is working through the negatives now. The expense and the general faff is certainly a consideration.

Also, the regard for privacy; those were very different times. Particularly if you were not looking your best. I know when I was on bedrest for pre-eclampsia I felt fat and puffy and horrible: I feel no particular enthusiasm about any pictures of me taken at the time. But it was the 2000s, so expected and I went along with the expectations.

It seems an odd thing for you to worry about: is there anything else that might have triggered this?

[leelu66]

Half the world doesn't have a picture of themselves as a new born (including me). I was born around the same time as you.

Many babies born in the past 10 years will have their every day documented.

I'm glad I don't have that many picture of me as a baby/child. The ones that I do have are infinitely precious because they are so few.

Is this really about baby pictures? Could it be that you are feeling unhappy in our family life at the moment? I only ask because most people would be happy with a baby pic at 12 weeks old.

[Abominablebride]

No newborn pics of me either, born 1973
Mum was kept in hospital 10 days and was a single mum so prob attributed to the lack of photos
It used to really bother me when I was young as my brothers had baby books and lots of pictures
I treasure the handful of baby pics of me that I do have

[leelu66]

*your not our! (unless you were adopted out of my family, lol!)

[RaptorInaPorkPieHat]

The earliest photo of me is when I was 2(ish) and was at a church party (not taken by my parents). I think there are maybe 3 photos in total from before I started school.

My eldest brother has tonnes, my other brother not so much. By the time I came along they were skint and couldn't afford the film (1970's). It doesn't bother me in the slightest.