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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask what your first memory is?

51 replies

Diel · 17/04/2017 01:44

I was in a cot watching my parents sleep. Think I must have been about 18 month or so. My next vivid memory is standing on a sunny street outside my house when I was about 3 or 4. Wondering what other people's memories are like from being a child. What age were you?!

OP posts:
nancy75 · 17/04/2017 01:47

My dad taking me to get McDonald's soon after my brother was born. I don't remember visiting the hospital, just getting McDonald's & going to my nans house to eat it. I was 3 and a half

HorraceTheOtter · 17/04/2017 01:49

My cousin's baptism. A shell was used to pour the holy water, I remember very clearly mistaking it for lettuce. I'd have been around 18 months. Then nothing until around 2.5/3, when i remember standing under an outside tap on a very hot day.

MrsTerryPratchett · 17/04/2017 01:55

Standing in a crib screaming for my mum. It was the 'old' house so before 4 yo. Then cracking my head open aged 4.

I think they are memories of memories though. I don't think I actually remember them so much as have thought about them so they are still in storage. Memory is weird.

user1491572121 · 17/04/2017 01:57

Oh getting pushed in my pram past a certain tree near our home. I can see it as I would have done lying down. I can see my Mum smiling at me too.

Original poster
Diel · 17/04/2017 01:57

It really is!

OP posts:
Nationcreationbusstation · 17/04/2017 02:02

Being carried by my mum through the corridor and seeing my auntie as we passed the living room, and then her putting me into my cot.

pinkiepie1 · 17/04/2017 03:00

Sitting on my mums knee when she was pregnant with my sister, asking what will she wear when she's born. 2 and a 3/4-ish

Next one is going to the hospital to see my mum and sis and being so excited cos my new baby sis had bought me maltesers and opal fruits. I'd of been 3yrs and 3months ish.

boolifooli · 17/04/2017 03:04

I was playing when a toy tea set and remember holding the teapot up to my mum who was ironing. I was about 5.

Ginger782 · 17/04/2017 03:05

Sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace and seeing my dad fall through the ceiling above the dining table (not sure what he was doing in the ceiling). He looked at me while hanging from his feet caught in the rafters and said "Ginger, get mummy" - I would have been maybe 3?
Second one was falling off my bike at about 4 while learning to ride on a hot day. I hurt my knee and was crying My dad gave me a chocolate ice cream and said "Chocolate fixes everything!" I blame him for my chocolate addiction now... Grin

sniffle12 · 17/04/2017 03:07

The most mundane stuff. Some of my pre-school memories are: stinging my finger on a nettle; being offered a peanut butter sandwich on a trip and not liking it; watching the cleaner sweep the floor after nursery; each being given a few currants in nursery breaks.

I do have a particularly unpleasant memory of making those bubble paintings where you're meant to blow bubbles in watery paint with a straw and lay a sheet of paper over them - only I sucked instead of blew Blush

To this day I can taste watery powder paint if I think about it Envy

SpreadYourHappiness · 17/04/2017 03:10

"Very few adults have memories from before 2.5 years old. Those who do report memories from before this age usually cannot tell the difference between personal memory of the event and simple knowledge of it, which may have come from other sources."

So while a lot of people think they have early memories, chances are their first real memory will be from age 3 or 4.

sniffle12 · 17/04/2017 03:18

SpreadYourHappiness yes, and I think it's quite easily to make an incorrect memory too. I had an accident aged 3 and split my head open, I vividly remember going to the GP who put a plaster on it. Except that my mum says we never went to the doctor's, she just dealt with it at home.

There was an interesting study on memory implantation where without people's knowledge, they mocked up photos of them on a hot air balloon as a child, and a good number of them then claimed to remember the trip.

MrsTerryPratchett · 17/04/2017 03:24

"Ginger, get mummy" LOL

Newyearnewbrain · 17/04/2017 04:23

Being given a handful of Sunmaid Raisins from another little girl in a hospital crèche while my brother was being treated for burns. I was 2, he was a baby and had grabbed hold of a long kettle cord and poured boiling water over himself. I bet 70s A&E wards were full of incidents like that!

steff13 · 17/04/2017 05:10

I was sitting at a bar with my dad, eating fried mushrooms, while my mom was in the hospital giving birth to my brother. I was a little older than 2. Well, I guess since my brother is 2 years, 3 months, and 13 days younger than me, that's how old I was. Smile

Popskipiekin · 17/04/2017 05:14

Falling into an enormous pond aged 4. I was wearing a clown outfit and "fishing" with a long net. I can just remember feeling very silly and annoyed I'd ruined my outfit.

Fadingmemory · 17/04/2017 05:18

Aged three I fell down the stairs at nursery school. I remember wondering why the window was doing a somersault.

TheBeastInMsRooneysRoom · 17/04/2017 05:26

I remember looking down and admiring my wellies whilst standing on a disgusting orange and brown carpet. My parents sold that house when was about 2.5, so before then but no idea how far before then.

wittyUserNameHere · 17/04/2017 05:26

In a highchair eating fried eggs and soldiers in the kitchen whilst my Dad washed up the frying pan. I must have been under 2 but it's so vivid. I even remember the brown and orange decor I could see in the pantry (showing my age!).

PotOfYoghurt · 17/04/2017 05:46

Mine are all negative things, which is maybe why I have them as they were strong memories. Getting stung by a wasp when I was two or three, getting a splinter and being in a car accident when I was three.

Other things I think are memories I've created by being told about the events, rather than actually remembering them myself.

Weebleswobbles · 17/04/2017 06:02

Crying because my snoopy pull along dog had been run over - I was 3

HorraceTheOtter · 17/04/2017 07:42

Mine are definitely my own memories. They're things unphotographe'd, which I can remember my though process through. I remember the actual thoughts rather than a visual image. My grandad has one memory from 18 months which can be dated perfectly, so it can happen. It was his dad home on leave from the war. He can remember being held by him, it would have been the first time he'd seen him since he was a very little baby.

toomuchtooold · 17/04/2017 08:17

I can remember blowing out the candles on my birthday cake,the heat of them. I'm assuming it was my second birthday because my third birthday the cake and everything was outside.

Rossigigi · 17/04/2017 08:19

Sitting up looking through my cot bars at my parents sleeping don't know how old but def younger than 3. I also have loads of memories of being in nursery so 3 then

TheTabardOfDoom · 17/04/2017 08:23

I was young enough to be wearing a nappy. My parents stopped at Cheesefoot Head on the way to visiting the relatives and I remember climbing on the information sign. I remember the dress and matching big knickers I wore to cover my nappy as was the fashion in the sixties.