How far can you go back in childhood

[puddicat]

Was thinking about my childhood, can only go back to 6 years old i think, my sis can go back to the moment of conception lol, that worries me that i am blanking out something, seen pics of myself doing things but cannot recall any of it,yet my sister can recall loads!!!

[cruella]

Hi puddicat,
My earliest recollection of childhood was when I was two and a half years old when I was in hospital to have my tonsils and adenoids removed. I remember most things after that!

[Rod Mac]

My brother is Three Years Five months younger than I am;and I can recall dragging him around when he was only months old; so I must have been about 3 years old...

[pinkkitty]

my earliest memory is of being in my Church's Nativity play when i was about 3, i was scared and hid behind the donkey and cried! i remember it really vividly.

when i was studying psychology we looked at the way the mind processes memories, and we learned that the way a child's brain works means that they are incapable of holding onto memories in the long term. its not until a child is about 5 or 6 that the things they experience have any chance of becoming real lasting memories. Anything before that age gets lost because their brain just isn't capable of holding onto it. Any "memory" from before that time is a false memory. You may be told about the event by a parent, or see photos or video footage and your mind assimilates that info into a "memory" or at least what you percieve to be a memory.

i don't know if that's 100% true, as i said, my memory of being in that play is very vivid. i found doing psych that almost all studies into the workings of the human mind can be discredited in some way. My husband has no memories from before he was about 6 years old.

[miffy63]

I can remember being in my pushchair and watching, as it was pushed along, as things disappearing underneath it eg leaves.
I can also remember being small enough to fit in the child seat on a supermarket trolley.

How can your sister remember being concieved, that's surely quite impossible?!

[aka pixi]

I remember being about two or three years old. I was walking down the road with two older girls and we were going for a picnic. There was a street sign at the side of the road near the field, (the kind that is on two little posts in the ground)and in my memory it is massive lol

[mrs_overall]

I can remember trying to climb onto a deckchair and the whole thing collapsing on top of me. I know exactly how old I was because it was at my cousin's 5th birthday party and my age was 21 months.

[puddicat]

thanks guys, miffy ,meant that she seemed to know alot about her childhood and i knew nothing, as the aber said could be to do with what adults put in your head memory wise rather than you remembering that experience!, i kept thinking that i must have a had a bad experience and kept blanking it out!!!

[annie0000]

I can remember lying in my pram listening to the rain on the hood - was definitely under 1 year old as I graduated to a pushchair then as I have seen it in the photos - the pram went to my auntie for my cousin who is just under a year younger than me.

[jno]

some kids can remember being born, apparently

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/quer y/0,,-2899,00.html

[pixiepie]

i remember being on my trike in a muppet t shirt outside my grandmas think i was 3/4 yrs old. then its only sketchy things i remember but think alot of that is influenced by photos and stories like pink kitty said

[country_boy]

I'd say my earliest memories are from around 2 years old, but a bit few and far between!

[puddicat]

i used to think that i was abused, i know that is wrong to think that, but some abused peeps say that they blanked that memory out, so glad that people have told me differently, only because my sister remembered and i didnt

[dot.hawkes]

my earliest memory is of walking with my mum taking my older sister to her forst school, i must have been 3 and a half or so. i remember it clearly as we had to cross a road after the horse drawn carriages went passed and the gas lamps were still lit from the night before.

[paulaoneill]

pixiepie - I would love a muppet t-shirt now!! I think I can remember back to when I was 3 years old asking my mum why I couldn't do to school with my big sisters and she told me that there was no way I could go and leave her on her own. Needless to say I cried for my mm on my first day of school!

[taperface]

I can remember quite a few things that happened when I was 2 year's old. First off, I climbed upstairs completely on my own to see my mum who'd just given birth to my sister (she's 23 months younger than myself). I can remember my mother asking how I'd got up the very steep stairs & she called to my father to help me back down. I used to climb up the wheels of the pram to peek at my sister, as well. I was also 2 year's old when I first set eyes on the girl who was to be my best friend for the next 9 years. We smiled at each other from our respective pushchairs!

[Huderon]

The earliest I can date for sure was when I was 3 ... looking down at the clouds from a plane when I was being brought back to England

[weeal]

puddicat, please dont think that ! I dont recall much from when I was small at all - some people do and some people dont. My sis remembers far more than I do but then she makes some of it up !!!

[puddicat]

i have realised that some people have better memory recall than me, and i do realise there isnt anything sinister from my childhood, thnks weal!

[babycakes200]

strange, when i read ur question i asked each of my 3 children if they remember mummys tummy? my 5 yr old daughter said no. my 2 and a half yr old daughter said there was water at her head and she liked to sleep and my 3 yr old son had the most to say...he said it was gooey but it was nice and warm and then he got scared when he seen lots of light and a monster (im guessing he means the doctor) and that he kept screaming because he was scared. im fasinated.

[jno]

fascinating, babycakes... write this all down or record it, because they'll forget it as your eldest has. Bet they'll be amazed when you play it back to them in 20 years' time!