To think she is normal?

[Serenabella]

My sd is 7 years old and dh thinks there is something wrong with her because she can’t remember her toddler years. She can’t remember going to nursery where she went everyday for 2 years and she can’t remember when she met me for the first time (she was almost 3).
I work with children and don’t think she is particularly unusual but dh is beginning to obsess about it.
She is a happy and healthy little girl, there is no trauma or anything in her past but she just can’t seem to remember anything past about 2 years ago. Is this unusual?

@Happycat1212

I do think that sounds unusual, my son is 7 and went to nursery for one day when he was 3 (don’t ask!) and still remembers it

But how much else of what he did at age 3 does he remember?

Everyone is different so it’s probably normal. My DS(6) remembers a lot of things from when he was 3 years old onwards, which we know as he often talks about some memory he has of nursery which he started at 3, friends he used to play with, holidays etc.

I’m mid-40’s and remember a lot of things about my childhood, the earliest being around 2-3 years old. DH, on the other hand, has almost no memories prior to about age 10, and he believes that he ‘deletes’ stuff from his memory if he feels it’s not an important or interesting memory (sounds odd to me but he’s adamant he’s met people who have said the same).

If he feels there is something ‘wrong’ then surely he should contact the GP (who will likely laugh him out of the room!).

We lived overseas for a number of years and left when youngest DD was 3.

She doesn't remember it at all.

I think this is a known phenomenon in psychology. Most people don’t remember much of their toddler years at all and after that only key moments in childhood. People forget slower, some people never forget or have memories of their memories. But the majority won’t remember much of anything before 3 or 4.

And yes, stop probing her.

We haven’t probed her, we literally found an old album when we were moving house last month and she didn’t even recognise a picture of herself and kept asking who it was.
Also yes dh does seem to have gone a bit nutty over this but he has good intentions at heart.

Memory in children is quite strange. My partner has very few memories of his childhood, while I have some very vivid memories from about the age of 2 onwards. My own father swears he remembers being in his cot as a small baby.

She does sound utterly normal. Usually the things children remember from infancy are extremes of emotion, so things that made them very happy, or upset, or very frightened. (My mother was attacked by a crow in her pram, she retained the memory and had a fear of birds after that.) The mundane and everyday just doesn't get remembered usually. I have quite a few memories prior to five years (we moved house that year) but of all the events of those five years I can only recall a tiny percentage.

I remember other episodes after that, mostly with the help of photographs that I looked at when the event was still recent and the memory still fresh. That does help fix memories I think.

It's more atypical to remember a lot, as generally infants' brains aren't at the stage of development where meaningful memories can be stored long term.

I have very vague memories of being aged about 3/4 my memories don't get clearer until age 7 or so.

I did lose all my memories completely a while ago due to trauma, my mum would talk about something and I'd literally look at her like I didn't know what she was on about.

They have slowly come back but I'm not sure I'll ever fully get them back.

So memory is weird, is what I'm saying.

And this is why everyone on Facebook gushing about ‘making memories’ are deluding themselves. As well as annoying,

Earliest memory is when I was 4. He is being ridiculous.

Adults don't tend to have any memories before the age of 3. Those that do it's usually just where they have been reminded by being told the story and shown the photos. It's to do with the way your brain processes your environment and forms memories at that age. They do not get stored in long term memory in the same way when we are 0-3 years old, our brains are far too busy learning to remember to remember memories!

DD went to a nursery from 1-5. Doesn’t remember it. Doesn’t remember being in the nursery class in school either.
Remembers other random things from age 3 etc though.

@Ch0c0latechops please don't post nasty shit and then follow up with kissy posts to others. One behaviour doesn't cancel the other. REPORTED.

He's being daft.

Reassure him that feeling loved and enjoying things as a small child builds good things, they don't need to remember specific things for it to count.

My sisters 10 years younger than me and I can't remember her being born or small atall. Not her as a newborn, not her in primary school. And I was 10! Yanbu.

Think I blocked her out 😂

@Ch0c0latechops I have my suspicions there's a troll on thread. Not the op though.

I dont remember anything really until I was three, and nothing significant until I was 4-5. My eldest is about that age and doesn't seem to remember anything from nursery last year!

@Happycat1212

I do think that sounds unusual, my son is 7 and went to nursery for one day when he was 3 (don’t ask!) and still remembers it

Was it a bit of a traumatic day for him? Usually at that age they only remember significant events in their lives. I remember my brother being born when I was 3 (that was traumatic 😂) but nothing else in that period.

One of mine (age 7) practically remembers being born, the other can't remember much past 2 or 3 years ago. He's 8 and can't remember reception. Asd though.
I think it varies!

Some people are very private and don’t want strangers posting/discussing about whether they are “normal” are a very widely used public forum.

@Ch0c0latechops why are you on MN forums at all then? Everything on AIBU is about other people.....