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?

I've got memories from round about the time of ny first birthday as has my dad so YANBU at all.

I can remember my mother being pregnant with my brother. She had just started looking pregnant IYSWIM, so approx. 4-6 months ish. I would have been 2.

I can remember things from when I was 2-3yo. I can remember a pink all in one suit that I loved to wear and I cried when my mum got rid of it when it was too small at about 2.5yo, my red pushchair and my dad coming home from a tour of duty in Iraq when I'd just turned 3.

I can't remember as much as I can from when I was 5 or 6 but there are quite a few things that stand out from roughly 2 yo.

I think my earliest memory is when I was about 3 at play school. I have noticed that a lot of people's memories relate to significant events like the birth of a sibling or moving home. Neither of these happened to me as a child so maybe that is why I have so few memories.

I wonder what kind of memories children who are very young now will have as every moment of their lives are photographed.
There is only one picture of me as a baby and only a handful as a toddler because my folks didn't have a camera.
With children now we photograph every moment. There will be pictures of every house they have lived in and every pet they had.

Yanbu. I remember a house we moved from when I was 18 months old. I remember sitting in my high chair eating my dinner while my mum was cooking. I have no significant memories from that young, just some random ones. I always thought it was the brain maturing and flexing its memory muscle.

I have a memory from when I was even younger than that. It was a traumatic incident when one of my older siblings had a very nasty accident. Nobody believed me that I remembered it but changed their minds when I was able to recall where people were standing, what was said etc etc. That was one single dramatic incident though.

I definitely have memories from being 3.

For years I have had flashbacks of an incident. I must be 2-3 years old and I am looking on rather than involved. I will not say as it is not very nice.

I recall playgroup, the garden, bikes, sandpit and the wooden step in front of the toilet.

I remember my first day at primary school, my headmaster and teachers. I can picture my peers, remember their names, trips, sports days.

My earliest memory is from being 18 mths old. My brother was born then and I remember peeking at him in his crib.
After that - I can remember things from being about 2 1/2...not vividly though

I rember visiting my mum in hospital when she had my brother, I was 2.5. And I remember throwing my last dummy away, I was 2.

I can remember stuff from being 2-3- also I think I can remember certain things from being a baby - shaking my rattle, being in my baby bath and being in the cot.

I remember quite a few things from nursery school. The very first day when I was introduced, and the teacher asked another child to give me some Plasticine, and being given a tiny pea sized amount. Wondering why the Plasticine was grey when I had ten different colours at home. Blowing bubbles in water and paint to make a bubble picture, going on the rocking horse in the area for disabled children that I wasn't supposed to go in - but loving that horse so much that I just had to. Being scared to crawl through a plastic tunnel to slide down the slide. Never managed it. Bouncing on a giant white inflatable and thinking it was the best thing in the world, ever. I can still remember that feeling of absolute unfettered joy. The educational psychologist doing assessments, as they thought about sending me to school a year early. Asking me if I knew how many toes I had.

Oh YANBU - we moved house when I was two and four I can remember visiting the new house (was being built) at two, the house vividly, and the house we sold to move there. I can also remember people, conversations, and geography at the house aged 2 - 4. I checked on Google Maps a while back and the actual house is gone but I recognise all around. I can remember climbing frames a, the hall I went to 'playschool' in, and a particular friend and her mum.

I have a memory of being little. I text my mum and asked for old I was when I was stood on a table having cream put on the back of my knees.

She told me I was rough age of my DD now (2.2)

I remember being jealous of my baby sister being fussed over by visitors coming to see 'the baby'. I'm two years older than her. I definitely remember my mischievous intent giving her shampoo to drink when we were in the bath together aged three (me) and her (one). It was the '70s; I guess it was acceptable to leave a three-year-old to make sure a baby didn't drown. I also remember the frantic trip to the hospital, though not, as my mum claims, the bubbles coming out of my sister's mouth... My husband also remembers things from before he was three, though both our short-term memories are rubbish now.

I have lots of memories from when I was that age, though some are a bit hazy. It isn't unusual.

I have quite clear memories of my cot, which I think I was out of by 18 months. I remember pretty clearly the layout and decor of the house my parents lived in then, which we moved from when I was just three years old.

I remember the garden, the street, a few of the neighbours, my baby sister being brought home from hospital after birth.

I have very very vague memories of a playgroup my mum used to sometimes take me to (or was it mother and toddler??). I remember the excitement of Christmases in that house.

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 have a very distinct early memory, and when I described it to my mother she knew exactly what I was talking about and when it happened. She told me that I was nine months old. Which matches my memory that I couldn't walk yet, because I remember being frustrated by that fact at the time - I started walking at almost exactly 12 months.
It's a static memory, not like I can remember exactly who was doing or saying what, more like a photograph which only exists in my mind. The memory is less about the event itself than it is an ability to remember exactly how I felt about it - it's a bit hard to describe, because it has nothing to do with language.

I think it's a bit odd to say that babies aren't 'experiencing the world fully' if you've ever spent any time around an actual baby. Maybe the difference is in the way they experience it. And the way they categorize and store what they do experience.
Maybe that's why people on the Autism spectrum (which I may be, it wouldn't surprise me) have clearer early memories, because they don't need the words to frame it with.

Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if I was less than one in my first memory.

I know this thread or whatever you call it is 20+ years old HOWEVER I had to respond. My first -far as I know-memory is of someone (I know it's my dad somehow though he's not visible from my perspective in the "snapshot" I believe is a memory) carrying me apparently, as my perspective has a quite steep downward angle to it and its just a single image from me being carried into a house and looking over the floor with big black tiles with white grout lines of a foyer into a nearly empty room with boxes to the right on beige or tan carpet and some medium wood colored trim outlining a window or 2 on the far wall. When I told my parents about this image ive had in my head all this time they told me it must have been when dad was watching me and introduced me to our new house for the first time as he'd started moving in and was getting it live in ready while my mom was in the hospital either pre or post the delivery my little sister (pre-eclampsia resulted in hospitalization for monitoring before delivery so she was there for 2 weeks..dad didnt just leave her there alone to birth a kid and take me and move. Haha.) But 1. We were in the process of moving and 2. It was during the birth of a sibling and 3. It was a different experience for me both with my dad as sole caretaker and my mom not being there. Neither one had happened before. I think that's interesting as others have mentioned the same circumstances existing around the "too young to have any memory of" memories.

I vividly remember breaking my arm when I was 2y 5mo!

I remember the accident itself, and then the ward afterwards, and finding it all very exciting! And how nice everyone was. And then coming home a few days later and sitting in the kitchen eating Heinz lentil soup, thinking how delicious it was 😁

Memory is intrinsically linked to language development in humans. The earlier you understand language the earlier you are likely to have memories.

Same. They are quite clear visual memories, and not something someone has for example told me about - like the curtains in my room as I lay in my crib and their colour as they fluttered in a breeze in the morning sun.

It is possible.
My earliest memory can be dated to an incident when I was about 18 months old and like many other posters I have lots of snapshot memories from 2, 3, 4. We are not the sort of family that photographed or sorted into albums, so the visuals I can describe can't be reconstructions

I had multiple memories from age 3, but I also had one strange memory that didn't make sense. The memory included the baby next door in its pram, plus something very time specific making me 18 months old, but she was 4 years younger. I asked my mum, thinking she would correct the time specific event - but instead she told me the lady next door had another baby who had died of cot death, which explained the timeline.