There’s something strange about the first year after having a baby.
I remember those months with a lot of haze and only a handful of really clear memories to show for them.
The ones that stayed are a strange mix. Some are beautiful. Some are sweet. Some are scary. And, of course, a few involve blowout diapers.
But what I’m most surprised I don’t remember are the things I thought for sure I would retain.
The particular little sounds my baby made. The expressions that were so familiar then. Exactly how it felt to hold that small body against mine. The funny little things they did over and over again that I was certain I could never forget.
At the time, these things were part of every day. I knew my baby so completely that it never occurred to me that I might someday struggle to remember them.
But many of those details have faded.
It’s the ordinary details I wish I could reach back and retrieve.
And I know I’m not the only mother who has experienced this.
Why Can the First Year Feel So Blurry?
Think about how much your attention is being asked to do during those early months.
You may be feeding a baby while mentally calculating when they last slept. You’re listening for crying while trying to answer a text. You’re keeping track of pediatric appointments, diapers, laundry, groceries, and whether you have actually eaten anything yourself.
And you may be doing all of that on interrupted sleep.
It’s a lot.
Memory depends partly on attention, and attention can be in short supply when it is being pulled in six directions at once. Sleep matters too. Research shows that restricted sleep can affect both attention and memory formation.
How often have you heard someone say, in an exasperated voice, “Mom brain”?
I certainly have.
But the idea of “mom brain” is more complicated than the stereotype suggests. Many new mothers genuinely report feeling foggy or forgetful. One 2022 study found something particularly interesting: mothers one year postpartum rated their own memory as worse than women who were not mothers, even though the two groups performed similarly on objective tests of memory and other cognitive abilities.
I actually find that reassuring.
The fog can feel very real without necessarily meaning that our ability to think or remember has somehow fundamentally changed.
Why Do Some Moments Stay While Others Fade?
This is the part that fascinates me.
I don’t remember everything from those early months. Not even close.
But I remember certain moments vividly.
And they aren’t all the scary ones.
Some are beautiful. Some frightened me. Some are funny. And some probably stayed simply because they stood out from everything happening around them.
Emotion does influence memory, but not in a simple stressful memories stick and ordinary memories disappear kind of way. Research suggests that emotionally significant experiences can sometimes be particularly memorable, while stress can strengthen some aspects of memory and interfere with others.
So I don’t think we need a tidy explanation for why one moment stays and another disappears.
What interests me more is whether there are things we can do when we recognize one of those ordinary moments we really don’t want to lose.
I Wish I Had Known to Do This
I wish I had done more of this when my children were babies.
Not documenting everything.
Definitely not creating another project for an exhausted new mother.
Just occasionally stopping and thinking:
I want to remember this.
Maybe your baby is asleep on your chest.
Maybe they make a particular little sound when they’re nursing.
Maybe they have an expression they make right before they fall asleep.
Maybe they’re sitting in the bathtub laughing at something that isn’t remotely funny to anyone over the age of one.
Pause.
Look at them.
What do they sound like?
What does their hair smell like?
How heavy do they feel against you?
What does that little hand feel like wrapped around your finger?
Stay there for a few seconds.
I can’t tell you that doing this will guarantee that you’ll remember the moment twenty years from now. Memory doesn’t work that way.
But attention matters. And so many of these little moments happen while we are simultaneously thinking about the next five things we need to do.
Sometimes we can give one of them a little more of our attention.
Give Yourself Something That Can Bring You Back
Take a picture if you want to.
Write two sentences in your phone.
Send your partner a text.
Make a thirty-second voice memo.
You don’t need a beautiful baby journal. You certainly don’t need another motherhood project that you can fall behind on.
Just give yourself something that might bring you back to that particular moment.
And don’t only photograph what your baby looked like.
Capture some of the details that a photograph won’t necessarily tell you.
She makes this funny snorting sound when she’s really hungry.
He always puts his left hand on my neck when he falls asleep.
She smells like baby shampoo and spit-up and I love it.
Those may be the things you want someday.
Sensory details can also become powerful cues for memories. A smell, a song, a photograph, or even a sentence you wrote years earlier can unexpectedly bring something back.
Come Back to the Ones You Want to Keep
Every once in a while, revisit them.
Read the note.
Listen to the voice memo.
Look at the picture and remember what was happening outside the frame.
Tell the story.
Memory research gives us good reason to think that retrieving something can make it easier to retrieve again later. What it doesn’t give us is a scientifically proven schedule for preserving memories from your baby’s first year.
So please don’t turn this into another thing you are supposed to do correctly.
There is no memory homework.
Just come back to some of them when you can.
Oh yes. I remember this.
You Aren’t Supposed to Remember Everything
I think many mothers quietly grieve the idea that they were supposed to “soak up every moment.”
I never quite understood that advice.
How exactly are you supposed to soak up every moment when somebody needs a diaper change, you haven’t slept for more than three hours at a time, and you’re trying to remember whether you ate lunch?
Some of it is going to disappear.
That is true of every period of our lives.
I certainly wish I remembered more.
But maybe if I had known how much of the ordinary would eventually fade, I would have stopped occasionally and paid attention to something that seemed completely unremarkable at the time.
Not the birthday.
Not the first Christmas.
Not necessarily even the first steps.
Maybe just the weight of my baby asleep against me.
A particular little sound.
The face I saw every day and was absolutely certain I could never forget.
Those are the things I wish I could reach back for now.
And maybe that’s enough reason to occasionally stop in the middle of an ordinary day and think:
I want to keep this one.
When the Fog Feels Like More Than the First-Year Blur
There is a difference between looking back and realizing those months feel hazy and being worried about how you are functioning now.
If forgetfulness, difficulty concentrating, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, or simply not feeling like yourself is interfering with daily life, it’s worth talking with your healthcare provider.
Sometimes things that get brushed off as “mom brain” deserve a closer look.
And sometimes the struggle isn’t really about memory at all.
It may be anxiety. A traumatic birth. Overwhelm. Sleep deprivation. Or the enormous adjustment of becoming someone’s mother.
Those things deserve attention too.
Research & Sources
Orchard et al. (2022). A study of first-time mothers at one year postpartum found that mothers reported more subjective memory difficulties than non-mothers, while the groups did not significantly differ on objective measures of memory and several other cognitive abilities. Poorer subjective memory among mothers was also associated with poorer sleep and greater symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Crowley et al. (2024). Systematic review and meta-analysis examining sleep restriction and memory formation. The findings support a small but reliable negative effect of sleep restriction on memory formation.
Baldi et al. (2026). Cognitive and emotional correlates of sleep in the peripartum period: A systematic review. Behaviour Research and Therapy. This review found consistent relationships between poor peripartum sleep and emotional functioning, while findings involving specific cognitive outcomes such as memory were more mixed.
2026 study of postpartum mothers, fathers, and nonparents. In a sample of 400 adults, researchers did not find significant group differences across objective measures of executive function, working memory, episodic memory, or processing speed.
McDermott (2021). Review of retrieval practice and memory. Retrieval — actively bringing information back to mind — is a well-established way of supporting later retrieval, although this research was not specifically conducted with postpartum autobiographical memories.
Until we meet again — breathe gently, walk slowly, and treat yourself with kindness.
— Iris