I can remember very vividly experiences that cannot have happened after I turned 2.
It is nice to have something I can show people when this infrequently comes up, because I have had people insist that these must be false memories, as children cannot form memories before 3. Or before 5. Or in one case, before 10? Like what?
I've had people full on state as fact children can't recall anything before age [4-7]. 10? Wow haha.
My earliest memory is at around 18mo. When I was nearly a father myself, I told my mom of my early memory and she remembered it too and told me how old I was.
My kids, especially the first, would routinely recall things when she was 3 that happened when she was 2 or slightly younger. I can recall thinking, "I barely remember that, how the heck do you remember that!?" However, she had forgotten most of those early early memories a few years later.
> 18mo
I wonder if it's something to do with the memory being reinforced (maybe in surprising ways). E.g one of the memories I have from around a similar time is me receiving a toy gift (video memory) . It makes for a decent display item and has been kept out in one bedroom or the other in every house my family lived in since. So I would have seen it every now and then throughout my childhood. Perhaps, this reinforcement can occur in other, more non-obvious ways in a child's brain, offering a similar explanation for your experience.
It's surely true that a memory fragment can be kept alive or reinforced by stories or physical tokens (objects, photographs). This can be true of a high-fidelity "correct" memory as well as of a sketchy incorrect one!
It's also well-established that "memories" can be purposefully created by the application of the same tools.
But it becomes all so elusive when you grow older. I remember remembering moments before I could speak or walk, but I think those memories were clearer when I was a little kid (I'm 40 now). Too bad I didn't write them down back then. Things like trying to utter a word but parents giving up before I could produce the sound, or using a baby walker (those were a thing in the late 80s). I think I have a picture in my mind of a scene where my little brother was just born and I was 1 year old, but my mother says it couldn't have happened like that, so it might be my memory or hers that's playing tricks. But for some memories it's also hard for me to determine whether they are confabulations from stories I've heard and pictures I've seen, or happened later than I think, eg. at age 5-6 instead of 2-3.
My daughter remembered the names of all her daycare friends not long after turning one. They always took their shoes off, and she would tell the adults whose shoe it was immediately. At 2 she would say things like “I fell I got booboo” referring to having fallen at Daycare during playtime. Its really funny because she can recollect some things but others like what you just told her are completely alien. I wonder if it has to do moreso with physical events being easier for her to describe vs trying to summarize my grown up words so she can relay them back. As she gets older repeating more complex sentences and fully understanding them will be easier for her to store.
I wonder if this is why smell helps to reactivate memories, your ability to recollect smells is probably the more consistent way to retain memories.
My parents moved when I was 3 and an half. I remember distinctly our previous house. I described (much later) to my parents the layout and the colors of different rooms and they were shocked that I could remember.
My 3.5 years old son, still remembers things that happened when he was 2 (visit to disney land for example). But I think it's maybe a bit different nowadays because we have a lot more photos that might help him form and recall his memories compared to when I was a child in the 80s.
Nearly all my memories I have from when I was 2-3 years old were reinforced by having photos from around the time that I looked at as I grew up. Like I remember painting cabinets with my dad as a toddler as they prepared the house to move, and I have photos of the kitchen before the cabinets were painted. I have memories of the move, and I have photos related to the move as well.
I remember being frustrated in a 4th of July bike parade as a small child, as I had lots of long ribbons off the handlebars which I kept getting tangled up in on the bike with training wheels. We had a photo of me on the bike in that parade. I probably couldn't tell you anything else about that parade, but I do remember how annoying those ribbons getting wrapped around me and the sweat and heat of the day.
There's research that has shown that stress in the early years of life delays development of the hippocampus - and without sufficiently developed hippocampus you can't have these kinds of memories.
So the generalization ("all kids") is wrong, but some people, being exposed to toxins or stress sources (fetal alcohol syndrome, cigarettes, lead, premature birth, asthma, ...), can really only develop memories later. 10 years is a bit much, though...
Likewise. I have a handful of memories from between 18 and 24 months.
I know they're from that period, as they relate to a place where my parents lived at that time.
Yeah I don't have a lot of early childhood memories that probably aren't just re-creation of things I see in old photos, but one memory stands out - my late uncle leaning over stroller I was in, me getting properly scared of his mustache and starting crying.
I mean stroller where infants lie flat down and have this canopy above head, sorry don't know exact english term. Can't be more than 1 year in any normal case, I was a tall child.
But then again who knows, maybe its a memory of a dream experienced later. Our mind is a weird place, and subconsciousness is making various cleaning activities and modifications to make us feel better about ourselves (something I try to fight consciously to remember things as they truly were with all the warts and all, but it ain't easy).
>But then again who knows, maybe its a memory of a dream experienced late
Or that sounds like the kind of event your uncle would tell you about when you were a few years older. Probably every time he saw you. I know I have several childhood stories I've heard so many times they feel like memories.