Babies and Toddlers

Most of us can't think back to that time before we reached the age of 2, a period of what experts call "infantile amnesia." According to Ceci, we access our memories in the same way that we store them, through language. Since babies have no language for recording their experiences, all the hugs and kisses, smells and tastes of babyhood are irretrievable, though their effects (we hope) last a lifetime.

Yet researchers have discovered that recollection starts very early. "Six-month-old infants can be trained to move a mobile in their crib by kicking at a ribbon, and they remember that activity a few days later," says Judith Hudson, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at Rutgers University. When Emily Fulk, of Naperville, IL, was 10 weeks old, she would purposefully bat a toy attached to her bouncy seat, even after a day or two away from it. "At first I thought, 'No, she can't be remembering that movement,'" says Emily's mom, Dani, "but then I looked at her and she was doing it again: same motion, same hand, same result. She's got to be remembering."

Toddlers can remember things that interest, frighten, or excite them for as long as ten months after their first exposure, notes Hudson. Which explains the time I took my daughter for her 12-month checkup, only to have her howl when the lady with the short blond hair and the white coat appeared; the same one, I finally remembered, who'd come at her with that cold, scary stethoscope three months before. "A toddler won't remember the particular events of her last doctor's visit, but she can have a generic sense of what happens at the doctor: 'That lady did something to me, and I hated it,'" says Hudson.

Even a single bad (or good) experience will stick with toddlers, for they tend to generalize. If it happened once, they figure, it's sure to happen that same way again. Scripts that tend to stick in memory are pleasant (when you go to Grandma's, you get to eat great cookies), unpleasant (when the babysitter comes, it means that Mom is leaving), or stressful (they left me here with Auntie Sue and then came back with that icky baby).

MEMORY BOOSTERS

Supply your toddler with reliable routines. You might play a game of what comes next at bedtime, or help her put her "lovey" to bed. Nursery rhymes reinforce a toddler's sense of expectation, to the point that she'll start filling in the blanks with "goo's" and "gah's" before she's even started talking. Repeat action rhymes and songs (like "Itsy Bitsy Spider") to her, and she'll start doing the motions before you even get to the next phrase.

TRICKS THAT WORK

• Let her do it herself. If it's been in the hand, it's more likely to stick in memory. (Of course, once she's opened the cookie drawer and found a treat, you're sunk.)

• Remind her with a picture. When she's not seen Grandma for some time, you can prime your little one with a photo.

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