Early sex education Or: Where babies come from (sorry, long!)

[123Mama123]

Dear all
I am hoping to get some recommendations for (a) sex education book(s) for toddlers. Given the age (3y), "sex education" obviously means: "where babies come from". My master plan is to avoid any sort of ominous "talk" by making the information available to my son to look at if and when he shows an interest. There is no baby on the way, I just want the information to be at his disposal. I do see no reason why he shouldn't learn about babies the same way he learns about trains, dinosaurs, Jesus, the farmyard etc. - casually and by just having an appropriate book around.

So far, I am a little bit shocked by the choice available, or rather: the lack thereof. Most books seem to target 8-9-year-olds or pre-teens, dealing with the discovery of their own sexuality. This is fine, but surely, children ask about the differences in men's and women's bodies, where babies come from etc. well before that age?

I am also shocked about user comments on amazon and in several parent forums complaining about "too graphic" information and feeling that 5-year-olds did not need to know about penetration. Every parent must do what they feel is right, but personally, I have little time for such squeamishness. I see no reason that things like penetration cannot be explained and indeed illustrated age appropriately without being pornographic. Sadly, I feel that many books for toddlers cater for the rather bashful parent, either focussing on a "new baby" without dealing with conception and birth, or skirting around the topic with many (many!) pages explaining where babies do not come from. There is even a book titled: "It's NOT the Stork". Where is the sense in that?! My son has never heard any myths about conception and childbirth and I am not planning that he should. So I do not care about patronising books telling him that he "surely" heard a lot of ridiculous stories on the topic.

Another book I took an instant dislike to is "Mummy Laid an Egg", where the author hides her own parental embarrassment (??) behind somewhat OTT silliness. An incompetent pair of parents is telling lots of ridiculous stories about conception to be then set straight by the children. The story is sort-of-kind-of funny for adults and older children, but for a very young child, I feel this ridicule of the parents is none too reassuring.

"What Makes a Baby" is highly praised for its modern take and inclusive language, and indeed I liked the way things were explained. But the illustrations are soooo abstract that people are hardly recognisable as such and I fear they will do little to attract the attention of a toddler.

So, you see I am somewhat hard to pleased. But in the end of the day, I am looking for a book that serves the facts straight, without myths or silly language, and with "normal", childfriendly, i.e. not too photographic, not too stick-figure-y illustrations. It is not paramount, that a 3-year-old understands every single word, it should just be explained in plain, easy way.

Bravo and thank you, if you have read this so far! If you have any recommendations, you will have my undying gratitude!

[MrsLeighHalfpenny]

Write one! You could make a fortune.

[123Mama123]

[Lonz]

I find this too, but I did see a book in a charity shop a while ago, have no idea what it was called, but it did explain about sperm meets egg blahblah and what happens after 9 months. I don't like the silly books either that don't explain anything. To be honest I'm looking forward to the sex ed bit, ha, and I wont be holding much back. Obviously it'd be age appropriate!

I got given a bunch of books called Wonderwise. There's different ones. There's one called 'The world is full of babies' that explains where baby grows and how it feeds but not how baby got there in the first place or how baby got out either.
My son isn't really interested in knowing, he's only three but I have told him that he was in mummy's belly a few times. I think I knew a lot more about sex ed than most kids at school because my mum openly spoke about it whenever, so knew a lot before we even started sex ed at school. I was surprised at how little the other kids knew.

[mrsmortis]

I don't suppose you and your son speak German? I like this book: www.amazon.de/reader/3473327417?_encoding=UTF8&page=3 - It doesn't talk about sex as such, but about how only women can have babies and how all babies need both a mummy and a daddy to exist. And a lot of info on what happens to the baby when it is inside it's mummy.

In the same series there is one about the human body which without batting an eyelid shows the differences between girls and boys and gives all the body parts their correct names.

[PluggingPictures]

I've worked in children's bookselling for 7 years so hoping I might be able to help!

I can see you're quite particular but some of these might be worth a look:
Let's Talk About Where Babies Come From by Robie Harris
How Did I Begin by Nick Manning
Where Do Babies Come From by Susan Meredith

[godsavethequeeeen]

I know this is a little old but what about Where Willy Went? Get the basics of sperm meets egg though quite well. The couple have normal sex too, unlike MLAE where they're doing it on space hoppers.