To believe that I have memories from as early as age 2 or 3?

[Pyjamaramadrama]

Inspired by another thread

I believe that I've got memories from age 2-3. But my dad is adamant that I can't have and I'm imagining things.

I can remember my cot. Also having a stairgate on bedroom door and standing crying against it and my mum coming to get me. I can remember my pushchair and rain cover, the potty I had, I remember mum changing my nappy (and I was out of them by 2.5), And i can remember the game she'd play while doing it. I remember mum leaving me in the hallway in the buggy and being afraid if the dark. I remember being put in babygros with the feet cut off as they must have been too small. I can also remember my dad chucking my baby bottle out.

Lots of other things too. I remember quite clearly and in more detail, and I can describe the colours of these things and where in the house these things were etc.

My dad says it's not possible, but he can't explain how I can tell him the colour of the straps on my buggy and various other things, when I've never seen photos or been told these things.

Does anyone else have such early memories? Or believe it's impossible to have?

anyone remember learning to walk? i remember lots of clapping, the most lasting memory of that time was the feeling of determination and bloody will. I remember, "foot, in front of foot!" I doubt what I remember is the first step or anything, I think it was further on when I just wanted to be able to walk without holding on to the damn coffee table.

actually, it's the same feeling I get in dreams when my feet just won't move as quickly as I want them to! never thought of the connection before.

I definitely have memories from aged 2, and I think possibly before. The mind is an amazing thing

I do too. But for some reason I remember them older than I was. I told my mom about my aunt forcing me to take medicine at what I thought was 4 years old, but actually it was about 2 years old. I have other memories that I think I was older in but I cross check and I was younger.

Oh my 15 yr old Dsis remembers a stray cat we took in when she was about 18 months old.

I have lots of memories from 2-3. Mostly involving animals, actually! I remember convincing my mom to keep the stray kitty when I was two (we had him for over 10 years!). I remember another cat dying after being hit by a car and burying her when I was 3. I remember seeing my old dog for the first time just after I turned three. I wanted to admire the pretty doggy. Turns out the dog needed a home, so we gave her one!

I also remember going on my airplane trip when I was three. I ate peanuts, lol. And I remember bits and pieces of my cousin's Bar Mitzvah from that trip.

I fell off a swing in my back garden when I was just about two.

I lost consciousness but remember being kept in hospital overnight, I recall my parents leaving the ward and crying for my mum. I also remember the nurse threatening to smack me if I didnt stop crying.

I remember my second birthday, just the cake - the heat of the candles and it being dark in the room (my mum must have shut the blinds to make the candles look more impressive). For that reason (only) I tried to make my kids' 2nd birthday party reasonably impressive with the hope that they might remember it!

I notice for quite a few people on here, having moved house or country seems to have preserved their early memories, maybe just because although you can't remember specific episodes from when you were little, you can remember your house/street... but if you continue to live there you don't know when the memory first dated from. We might be moving soon with 2 and a half year olds and I wonder if they will remember this house at all...

I can remember being fed baby food, vividly, we were on the beach. I must have been about 12 to 18 months. Then nothing till age 2 and escaping from my cot. I can remember playgroup aged 2 or 3. I can remember being in hospital aged 4, and my 4th birthday party. I started school aged 4 and remember bits and pieces. They are all fragments or moments rather than proper memories though.

Incidentally ds1 remembers the place we lived in London better than me. I showed him the wrong place on google maps once saying 'look it's x's house' & he grabbed the mouse from me, moved one house down & pointed - he was right I was wrong.

Another time he started pointing at a building I couldn't even remember. After a bit I realised he was saying 'hospital'. I knew it wasn't a hospital but had no idea what it was. I realised there was a sign on the wall so I enlarged it (ds1 couldn't do that) & it was an ambulance station. So god knows what else I'd find out he remembered from age 2 if he could talk.

I have memories from 3 but they're very dreamlike & fuzzy. Ds1's are absolutely clear (he can find somewhere we've been once over ten years ago on google maps) but I assume that's something to do with his severe autism

I have a memory of a door and a pattern in the glass I traced with my finger. I asked mum. We moved out of that house when I was 2. No pictures exist of that door. My dad remembers being born.

I had a operation at 2 1/2 and have clear memoerios of that and having a massive bandage i also remmber eating bright red jelly on the table in the middle of the childrens ward

I've got one very clear memory from when I was 3 - the day my mum gave birth to my sister. There are certain very clear details that I've double checked with her so I know it's a true memory. Nothing else though stands out.
YANBU.

You may be right too much too old. We moved house when I was 4, and I remember lots from the old house.

All of my very early memories are mostly snapshots rather than remembering the whole day, and what happened afterwards.

I can remember walking across my grandma's lounge towards my granddad. He died when I was about 18 months old. I have quite a good memory generally for utter rubbish but I do have very clear memories of being quite small, and certainly before my sister was born.

I remember being on holiday with my mum and dad, aunt, uncle an cousin, and I was probably about 2 at the time (looking at the hideous 70's fashions my mother had me in!)

I remember going to the hospital to see her - there was lots of deep snow and I took her a cuddly toy, I remember walking across the car park with my dad, clutching this little toy.

I have no memory though of my first day at school, and I often wish I could remember that!

That would make sense Oxfordbags, I would say I fit I to at least 2 out of 3 of those.

I remember being baby Jesus in my brother's nativity play. I would have been 8 months old at the time. My brother was 2 and a shepherd. He got cross and wouldn't let 'Joseph' rock me.

I remember having a tantrum when dad used frozen peas (instead of tinned peas) for my dinner.

Mum was in hospital having my sister at the time, I was 21 months old.

I have memories of being in my pram, in a cot, on reins ( loved reins!) and a lot more from around age 3 - I can remember colours and styles of my clothes and those of family etc. YANBU.

I remember reading that women trends to have earlier first memories than do men.

1 year is the absolute youngest possible, acne that is down to brain development. Infant brains in fMRI scans show that areas of the brain associated with consciousness only start to become active at around a year, and develop further at 14 or so months. Babies younger than this may not be 'experiencing' the world fully enough to make memories to remember, but a toddler can.

I wonder whether men having (on average) later first memories is also down to differences in brain development.

My problem is that I never know if the memories I have are actually my own memories or snapshots taken from the huge amount of photos my family took. They were absolutely obsessed with taking pictures of everything! My third birthday for example - I remember the cake, the present I got and who was there. I was absolutely Convinced I remembered it, then I saw the photos for the first time in a couple of years that my Dad found. The cake, the present and the family members were all in the pictures. So did I remember the day or the details from the picture?

It's possible particularly if the memory is distressing.

Like me falling down the stairs when I was 3.

I can remember being in my buggy and crying because I didn't want the rain cover on. That was before my brother was born.

I also remember my dad carrying me into the hospital room to see my mum when she'd just given birth to my brother: I struggled to get down from my dad's arms but then had to be helped up onto the high hospital bed! I was 25 months old.

I also remember being in the cot at my grandparents' and playing with the coloured balls on the cot bars. That was pre-brother too, I think.

YANBU. My sister is two years younger than me and I can remember my grandma changing her nappy, she was a little chubby baby of around 5 or 6 months at the time. I asked my grandma if I could change it, she got poo on her hand and said "you see? this is why you're not doing it"
I can recall the toddler group I went to and my sister being weighed at the baby clinic there, I queued up with my doll and had it weighed too .
There was a blue and orange seesaw at that toddler group that I loved.
I have loads of memories of nursery and can remember reception clearly but I'm old in my year so was pretty much 4 when I started nursery.

I think if you have the opportunity to talk about your early memories when you're still young, they become more firmly cemented. If you remember at, say, six, something that happened to you as a toddler, and you tell someone about it, the memory is fixed in the telling. But if you never mention it, perhaps it's more likely to be forgotten.