I'm married and have 3 kids all under 10. I get notifications on my phone where it will show, in picture form, what happened 3/5/7/8 years ago. Its usually a reel of my kids when they were smaller doing some type of activity. However, I don't specifically remember the activity we were doing or even them being that small really. Its like I have total amnesia from when they were little.
I get really sad (and even angry sometimes) that I lived this with my kids but I don't really remember anything other than more recent highlights like vacations. I'm afraid its going to happen again in 10 years and then my kids will be gone trying to start their life.
Anyone else or do I need to get checked out?
The fog or war clouds memory.
I look at photos from a month ago and ask myself who's kid that is.
That's why I take the pics/vids so I can remember.
lol, the fog of war is real. I just can't believe how quickly my kids have grown and how quickly time has passed. It really is true what they say, "the days a long but the years are short."
I like to think this is why our parents keep telling us “I never had any of these problems with my kids”
For real. Also probably why we had more than 1 kid, baby amnesia is a thing.
Sometimes things are hard because they're worth it.
And at the same time, they show my brother's photos as mine and i have to convince them it is him and not me. (We don't look n/alike, on the contrary...)
Take videos not only photos. Yes, same thing happens to me.
The videos come up too, and I love to hear their little voices. Its all gone by so fast.
Well, next thing is don’t forget to look through your albums!
Nah homie this is normal just journal more or try to update their baby books with more recent stuff if possible. I keep telling myself to do this because my boys are 2 years and 3 months respectively and I too forget stuff looking back sometimes.
It’s just a lot to remember big dog, jot aome stuff down with dates and it will help you. I studiously documented every day in highschool in my old planner we were given. I wrote all weekend activities and what we did. And just a few lines can make me relive that day. Even something like:
Even something like that can help you remember that day, the weather, and something funny that happened.
We tried this. Write something down every day.
But for some reason (?) That book could not just stay on the kitchen table. And here we are with an empty book.
IDK when Dada was first said, when they learned they can pull themselves on the couch.
It's OK. I've been told I have a photo problem. Pictures say 1,000 words.
The amnesia is real, daughter is only 16 months old but when I see pictures or videos from when she was 8 months old I’m like who tf is this baby. In the 8 months since then, she learnt to walk and run, switched to regular milk and straw cups, eats the same food we do, started babbling some words pretty clearly, sleeps solid through the night and one solid nap a day, plays toe-to-toe with older 2 and 3 year old kids like it’s nothing. Of course she has her older brother to learn it all from but still
My wife, every year, makes me a small album of photo highlights from the year. She started a few years after my kids were born. It's my most cherished present.
Every year I make a calendar for my wife, MIL, and my wife’s grandmother. Each month includes pictures of my kids from the same month of the previous year. So right now they have photos of January 2024 displayed. Sadly it’s just a desk calendar and I have a real hard time only picking four photos per month.
My mom wants a 8x10 wall calendar. So she gets about 6-9 photos per month. It takes some work but it’s worth it. And knowing my mom she has them all stacked away in a closet somewhere for me to come across after she passes
This is awesome, its so nice to have something physical like that. I do this with our vacations, never thought to do it for the year.
It's great. My memory also feels faded and it's a great way to get reminders of memories I wouldn't otherwise surface
Yep same here. Daughter was born in 2020 and those first 2 years were an absolute blur. I don't know if it was lockdowns or what but from the moment she was born to starting nursery was all the same day for me!
One thing my wife and i do to try and mitigate this cause lack of sleep and memory dont mix well. We have a shared note on our smart phones with dates and stories of things that we want to remember actually writing something down gives me more of a chance to remember it.
I think to a certain point this is common.
If you never remember a single memory it shows you, then yeah maybe get checked out.
If you feel like you have memory issues, it doesn't hurt to get checked out-if there is an issue, the sooner you know the more that can be done to fix and prevent further problems. Also, social media and being on our phones messes with more than our attention span, it can mess with your memory too-all that content gets stored somewhere in your mind, and your mind can't retain everything, so its going to overwrite something.
As someone else said, videos help too. Personally I've been making an audio log for our little ones. Audio letters that I will give them one day so they can hear and know what things where like, and I can encourage them. Its also audio in case aomething happens to me, they'll still be able to hear my voice.
I try to go over pictures as much as I can, I make it a point.
When back from vacation, I take an hour to go through all the pics from day one.
Once a month I’ll try to do a few minutes just running through what happened this month.
Years I leave for the automatic phone slideshows.
But I’ll often take time to go back to a certain vacation or period.
I fight for this. Memories are all I have, it goes by so fucking fast.
It works, to some extent. Can’t say I remember everything that comes up, but I can recall a lot. Maybe my memory is good (I don’t have what to compare to).
Maybe memory is a muscle that gets better when if train consistently).
I’m looking at my kid and he is 10, and it just doesn’t add up. I have all this evidence on my phone, 3,660 days worth of pictures, but I swear he was born just yesterday. That one memory of his first second on earth is vivid as I see him in front of me right now.
It’s too fucking fast for me, man.
This is exactly it. The time just doesn't add up, it has already gone by too fast!
I feel the exact same way, and it only started after having my daughter. She just turned one, and the last year has just been a complete blur. I generally remember it, but it's hard to recall the exact moments.
My two boys are 7 & 5 and need the photos to remember what they were like when younger. I genuinely the mind erases the horrors of the first few months haha. I always preferred wee videos to photos but the video and photos bring back the memories.
I like to think of it as them ones are stored away in a memory box in your mind, your mind is concentrating on making memories today. They photos/videos are the key to them. A bit corny i know.
Lol! Fact.
I am grateful for the photos/videos, a little trip back in time.
Having this issue too, but my kid is only 5 month old. I suspect it is related to having sleep impacted - my Garmin has been repeatedly telling me that I’m not getting enough REM sleep, presumably because of our kid waking us up repeatedly. (REM sleep comes after the other cycles in a continuous sleep, and is also negatively impacted by weed & alcohol) Might also be sleep apnea, which is something I’m in the process of getting tested for as well.
My little guy is about to t hit 4 soon, even at this age I feel you.
For this reason my dad refers to the ‘90s as his “lost decade.” I’m in the middle of my own lost decade now. I suppose the upside is my dad only lost the one, so probably things will approach normality again at some point.
You got that Click remote, didn't you? In the Beyond section?
This pretty normal. But I do think that writing or having a journal can help. Snapping pictures is one thing but writing it so that you can reinforce it to your mind is an additional step you can take. Something like a 5 year journal like the hobonoichi tech 5 year is what i use but there other similar ones out there. Key think I like is that each page has spots for 5 years and when you come back each year you can re read the prior entries. Many folks also have mini picture printers so you can put the pictures you take in the journal on the opposite page.
https://a.co/d/ff8gAA7
Do you smoke a lot of weed?
Sleep apnea can cause memory issues like this. I'm sure there are a ton of other potential causes. If you legitimately don't remember periods of your life like it sounds, get yourself checked. A family member did this and it changed their life for the better.
You could write in a journal if you want to remember.
I’m doing this for my wife I got several from Cub Scout campouts over the past 2 years. Guess who’s not there. I don’t want the kids to grow up and say mom was never there. She gets a pass on the next one because it’s literally her birthday. But after that she’s going. She going to have to deal with bugs. The scout leader is female so no excuses. Also it’s my daughter in scouts
For everyone, even if you're present during these years, they still go by fast. In just a few more years, OP will be going through the activities of his first Senior year. Plan to take the time off for all the events.
A guy I used to work with, when my oldest was born, told me not to spend my life working overtime, because one day I would turn around and we would be eye-to-eye.
I saw him going through that with his own daughter at the time, and I took it to heart. I hope he's looking down on me now and sees that I did my best to honor him.
Days sometimes seem never ending but the years just fly by. We forget lots of things but the pics/videos will always be there to help spark those memories. Love watching them myself. Don’t be sad but be happy you did all those things and you might not remember it but they sure do.