DS thinks he remembers being born

[sparebooks]

Walking along the road yesterday chatting to DS (4) about how his friend's mummy has had a baby pop out from her tummy.

He said "Mummy, when I popped out from your tummy all the noise hurted my ears?" I laughed and said oh do you remember it then? He was very earnest and reiterated that yes it was very noisy and his ears hurt. (Couldn't get anymore detail as he started talking about chocolate biscuits instead).

A quick google tells me that it's impossible to remember your birth. Does anyone else have DC with improbable memories / is he likely to be completely making this up..

I'm generally not into woo but years ago ( I'm mid 40s) told my mum that I had a vivid memory of being in pain and not being able to move my arms. I was born woth a cleft lip and palate. Mum told me that When I was around 3 yrs old I had a repair ( one of many) and they out my arms in stilts to stop me picking at my mouth.

When I was four, We were visiting my Nana, and my Mum took me into town on the bus. I pointed out a building that was being demolished and said to my Mum "My teacher Miss Williamson was in there when it was my school". Mum says I had quite an imagination so she didn't think much of it, and she had no idea what the building was, until later my Nana said "Did you see they're demolishing that school that Eddie went to?" Eddie was my mother's brother. He died of measles when he was six.

We can have early memories but sometimes they are things we've been told rather than true memories. I can remember the wallpaper that I had as a baby, we moved when I was 18 months and there's no photos of it, I can remember the flat too, mum told me I was completely accurate (I was around 10 when I talked to her)

My brother , as a teenager, asked my mother "Who was that woman who used to visit Nana, and show clothes to her and say "I thought these might do for the girls, Ada?" He described her clothes, and said she sometimes brought two other women who were a bit strange and never spoke. He'd described a woman who died when he was 8 months old. She worked as a housekeeper to a wealthy family and she used to sell their cast off clothing. The two women were her daughters who had learning disabilities.

On one of the Robert Winston programmes following the development of young children, a little girl who was very prem and poorly revisits a HD neo natal ward full of machinery and noise. The commentary remarks on how relaxed and at home she is in that environment (versus other kids who naturally find it quite intimidating) suggesting she has some kind of residual memory/feeling of comfort due to the amount of time she spent there as a newborn.

I also wonder if very small children do harbour memories of much earlier events which gradually recede as they develop, explaining why an early talker might chatter on about ‘being born’, but have no recollection of it at all by the time they’re 4 or 5 (as happened with a friend’s son).

Who knows? The brain is a weird and marvellous thing!

I have 2 or 3 memories from before I turned 1, many more from between 1 & 5. I didn't realise it was unusual until adulthood and rarely mention it so I don't have to deal with sneery challenges of disbelief from sceptics.

I think it has a lot to so with big changes within the family and home when I was small rather than anything else. Incidentally, my long-term memory is very good

I remember going onto the adjacent field to the hangars where concorde was built and watching it make its first test flight. I was 2 years and 4months (I've just googled the date ). I can remember the blanket I sat on with my parents and the incredible noise.

DD was born very quickly and slightly early by crash cs, and had a scalpel cut on her back when she was born. It wasn't deep or very long, and faded within a month of her birth. There is no hint of a scar, and we have never talked to her about it. (It was a night dh and I would rather forget).

Aged about 8 (she is 11 now), I was putting sun cream on her back and she said "don't forget to do it where the doctor hurt me". I said "which doctor?" She said "the doctor from when I was born" and wriggled round to trace exactly where her cut had been on her back.

I can remember loads of things from when I was pre-verbal and learning to walk. I remember my much older sibling tormenting me, reaching up the toilet door for balance when I was learning to stand, ‘walking’ with my siblings holding my hands and being swung, my grandad being very I’ll and the ambulance man looking over at me in the pram, being in the pram and sleeping in the sun by the door. Being dressed in a white itchy dress for a photo and being sat on the itchy lawn and crying (I was given the dress later for my dolls who would have been the size of a one YO, going to visit my grandparents with my sisters and generally a feeling of being very wobbly and with everything being very big and if I looked up the sky used to spin and sometimes rooms spun too. I can remember my mother cradling me and singing to me and giving me my bottle. I remember blue rabbit booties with bells. These are all very clear memories.

Also I remember watching the moon landing. I would have been about 18 months old. My dad took me outside to try to spot early satellites and spacecraft.

I have memories playing with a specific toy with my grandad - can fully describe the toy and what it did - but he died before I was one. No pictures of us with the toy etc.

Whe my dd was about 4, she said that she remembered our cat, and that she used to stroke her tail. That's true she did, she would be lying on her playmat and would reach out and stroke the cat as she went past - but the cat died when she was only a few months old. We were amazed that she remembered doing it.

Whe kids are very small, too small to talk to us about it, I do wonder whether they can remember a whole lot more than we realise, but as they grow those memories disappear.

My older one told me he picked me at 'The Mummy Shop' before he was born.

He then described how he had to choose and who he did NOT choose (coincidentally- or maybe not- all other women in our area who gave birth the same wweek that I did and with whom I did a few baby classes afterwards before abandoning the baby class thing).

I hold on to that conversation when I am feeling low. (He has additional needs and things have been tough the past few years).

My DH was adamant that he remembered his M&D getting married, they got married 3 years before he was born. What he actually remembers is them going to his aunts wedding. Your DS will probably remember being picked up when he was sleeping, or some suchmess (aware this isn't a word)

That's amazing. Is she gifted?

I was watching a film with my dd when she was about 3 and she said "oh I remember when we watched this before". I told her she hadn't seen it and id taken her older brother to the cinema to see it when she was in my tummy and she said "yes I know I watched it out of your belly button"!! 😂😂 Weird child!!

My DD did, at age three we had a similar conversation and she told me she had something round her neck and then someone took it off.
She was born with the cord wrapped round her neck which the midwife removed. We had never talked about it or mentioned it.
I think we can remember our birth but don't usually retain the clarity of memory to an age where we can articulate it, but occasionally like op a conversation occurs where a child can put it into words.

I can't be sure but I expect he's just making it up, my toddler says random stuff about when he was a grown up etc. I could take that as him remembering as past life or something, but I know it's just him saying random stuff!

One of my friend's children claimed to remember being born, and when questioned, said 'there was a prick and then it went whoosh'.

Maybe that was conception

My earliest memory I was thirteen months old and being carried up a staircase in Brittany. Of course I don’t remember it being abroad but I described the staircase to my DM and she said that’s where we were.

Mine told me when she was three she remembered being in my tummy and it was dark, but the good news was she knew when there was food because it floated past and she had a chocolate digestive. Well I know she’s fibbing, why you might ask? Because I had GD and didn’t eat biscuits when I was pregnant 😝😜😂

My DS said he remembered every day of our holiday to Australia. When we went he was 2 months old!

One of my DCs had quite vivid memories of being born. They lasted until he was about 8 and he can't remember it now he is older.

That's adorable 😆