Why can’t I remember my Dd like this

[Needsleepwontsleep]

Dd is 5, I have thousands upon thousands of pictures of her throughout her life so far, I have a few videos, but should have taken more.
Dh was showing me all these videos of her when little and I was fascinated watching them, but had to go in the loo for a little sob, I couldn’t remember her like this, the girl then was so different to now, I can’t remember how she spoke, things she said, it upset me so much.
Is this normal? Most of the videos were during covid times..first lockdown etc, I did have covid quite badly and long covid for a while, could it be this?
Also, is it normal to cry this much looking at videos of her when young?

I quite often get emotional looking back at photos of my DC because I feel like I “miss” them or that version of them even though they are still right here with me. And I still fiercely love the “new version” but it makes me feel like I no longer have the old one. It’s a very odd feeling.

I think this is quite normal, I'm not sure how much I'd remember without photos to remind me. I met up with a family today we haven't seen for a long time, their children are in their 20's, mine are under 8. My kids were just playing while we were catching up and the mum was commenting that she couldn't remember her children when they were the same age as my children, and I completely understood what she meant!

I think sleep deprivation plays a part. If you are not sleeping more than 2 hours at a stretch then your brain doesn't get to lay down the day's memories very well. And maybe we are somehow programmed to forget the worst bits, like pain in childbirth, so we keep having children.

I think children are like ogres and onions, they have layers. The 3 year old version is still in there somewhere.

Huge sympathy to those who had such struggles when their babies were tiny. I think the children won't remember now who looked after them then, but they will know very clearly who has loved them their whole lives.

Yes, I think it's so we can move on with our lives without constantly being hampered by nostalgia and regret.

Also remember you don't take videos of the times when...

they're refusing to put their pyjamas on

or they don't want Mummy, they want Daddy even though he's trying to WFH

or you're trying to chop vegetables with a sharp knife and they're like "let me help! I want to HELP let me DO IT aaargh"

or they really want an elaborate home-made chilli con carne and they want it right now so you get mince delivered by Gorillas and do all that cooking and then they don't want it.

[Yep, all these things happened this evening]

Just some journalistic balance...!

Also the brain goes through structural changes during pregnancy/post partum and those changes mixed with hormones, increased stress, chronic sleep deprivation and having to be constantly "on" during those early years must impact on memory?