How YOUNG is you very First memory

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I'm not as old as some of the people on this site at, but my earliest memory is of when I was under a year old, so it's still pretty early. I was crawling up the stairs of my grandparents' house, and my sister (about four or five then) was at the top encouraging me.

I remember something from somewhere around 6-12 months, I definitely couldn't speak yet (I had that cot until I was about one and didn't start speaking until a few months later), and my parent's don't remember this so I can't have got it from them telling me about it. I was in my cot and my Dad was going to work, he was walking from the left side of the room to the right in a grey long coat, and I got really upset because he didn't come to my cot like he did every morning, but I didn't know what to do about it.

I also remember being in the baby pen and looking down on my toy clown (I hear the sound it makes in my head), and I remember the feel of the stacking plastic rings in my mouth.

I remember many times being really terrified of the steps in my godmother's house, that was from about 18-20 months onwards (I started walking around 16 months)

I remember sitting on a bathroom cabinet/basin at my aunt's house, having dried peas pulled out of my nose with tweezers (because I never complained and at the time didn't talk much at all, my cousin had decided it was fun to stuff dried peas up my nose. I tried to get on with it but my other cousin told my aunt about it and she was angry because I hadn't said anything).

I started having night terrors after that (although it was more to do with something I saw at the first flat, I was sitting in the baby seat blabbering away to myself and the chimney sweep kind of disappeared up the chimney. After that I had nightmares about armies of oven pipes marching around and terrorising me. That might've had something to do with high fevers though because up until I was about five or seven I had chronic ear infections.

I remember the shape and smell and texture of the corridor in the flat we moved to when I was two, I used to crawl up and down that hallway a lot and I have the route 'mapped' in my head.

There are a lot of sensory memories of my wooden building blocks which I was always engrossed in, the smells and shapes and feels of my favourite blocks etc. I also remember 'wearing' plastic cups on my feet because it felt great, and there was this set of coins my Mum kept in a kitchen cupboard (for the washing machine, it was 20 Rappen/Cents coins you needed), along with a ruby ring. I used to have to ask for them and she'd give them to me and I'd sit on the floor sorting them by the numbers on them (dates).

I remember being 'snapped out' of a trance-like state by my Mum in said flat, I was in the kitchen in a baby seat thing (one close to the ground) and was maybe 3, and I must have been humming to myself again and my mother was going "What are you doing?" and then suddenly my vision switched on and I was 'back in the room' and confused.

I don't remember much of my babysitter (an Asian girl who was adopted, it took me years later on to understand what my parents meant by that - I didn't find it odd that she was a different colour than her parents!) which is odd because I do remember my parents going out in the evening. I always wanted to sit in my baby seat in the hallway when they weren't there, for some reason. I do remember one time I was babysat at my sitter's flat, because her Mum told me off because I was bouncing off the walls and she thought I was going to hit my head on the table. I was very angry because I hadn't hit my head, after all!

I remember my mother doing my ponytails when I was 3-ish, and me HATING it because it hurt so badly. (Thankfully they cut my hair short after that, my Dad's a hairdresser and I've only ever been to another hairdresser 4 times in my life)

I want to correct my answer. I said four, but thinking about it, I can remember a few things from three years old. (Still a lot older than some of the others here, but just the same.)

I have some memories from when I was 1 or 2.

-I remember daipers too! -oh, I wanted to take them off, but I was scared of the consequences.... I think that's why I also remmebr my potty, I was overjoyed at not having to wear those clumsy fluffy underwear. -it was around three. ,a nice little red potty... there is a photo of me carryin it to a private place to 'do it'.

-It's amazing how vivid the memories have been amongst us ASpies ... you ask an NT what was thier oldest memory and they recite thier firstday of school,, usually without any detail,, usually only about the 'experience' that they felt on the day.

Lol, I wasn't fully potty trained until age 4. I was comfortable with the idea of diapers, and didn't see why I needed to change my habits. However, I was very specific about who changed my diaper, and I would get upset if most people did it. Either my mom or the lady at the YWCA nursery had to. If anyone else tried, I'd scream.

What's funny is my other skills came early. I learned to walk and talk around 10 months of age.

In my earliest memory, I am 2.5, and I am going to gymnastics, for the first time.

I also have another memory, but I don't know how old I was all I know was that I was less than 3, but able to walk. I was in the basement, and my dad said something, I don't remember what.

I can remember being a baby in my mother's arms when she would carry me downstairs in the mornings. There was a lurch and a bump as she carefully grabbed the banister and moved down each step. I knew this was something that happened every day.

I just talked to my parents on the phone and yes the first memory is definitely correct (I kinda figured because it's not something they ever told me about), the layout of the room was spot-on.

Hehe my parents don't seem to find it odd that I remember this stuff at all. My dad was all: "Well that you remember so far back is a good sign, means you haven't had to suppress any bad memories". LOL as if I'd get emotionally scarred because my Dad ONCE didn't say goodbye before going to work

When I was less than a year old. I was in a blanket on a sunny day, and my mom just gave me a bath.

Earliest = not much before I turned 2.

I was in my crib, bored as hell. Left with nothing else to examine that I had not already examined a thousand times before, I started wondering about the precise things which were normally under my diaper.

I discovered I had... a third hole. I remember.

*feels around* Here's where the pee must come out.

*feels around* Aha, that's where the poop comes from.

*feels around* ... what is THIS, between the two?! Another hole! ...was this normal? Was I sick? Was I going to die?

I thought of death and the pain which by my understanding would be a part of it. (My parents did not shelter me from such things, even at that age.) Would I be like those dirty, sad little mounds of fur I saw on the sides of the roads sometimes? Or maybe I'd be like those old people in the hospitals, who never come home?

I was very scared lil.

I remember asking my mother about it later that day... it took her quite some time to stop laughing and answer me, as I recall.

Interestingly enough, my first memory has a link to another event. My mother and I were talking the other day and she was talking about how I never cried as a baby, and I asked her when was the first time I cried. She said the first time I ever cried was when I was almost 3 years old and she was trying to drop me off at a nursery.

I remember it well although she was incorrect about why I was crying, she thought it was because she was leaving, but it was because she was trying to leave me in a room full of other children.

I did not correct her on that though for obvious reasons.