At what age do you tell your kids how babies are made?

[Teacher12345]

My son is 7. He has asked a couple times and I have managed to skirt around it. I don't want to lie to him but "man puts penis in vagina" sounds too grown up for 7. That said, a cousin of mine told her son just that at age 4 when he asked.
What have you said so far?

On her first day of school, dd role played a cesarean in the home corner. Her baby brother was 4 days old. She apparently explained placentas and umbilical cords (a plastic plate and a skipping rope) to a gaggle of new classmates. She's 13 now and her friends still talk about it.

We just answered as they asked so they knew from 3ish, same as they knew about lungs and respiration.

@Breathmiller

Haha kitty Yes, when i was heavily pregnant with my last, my son who was 7 came out of school saying he had been reading a book in the school library about how babies were made. He looked my pregnant bump up and down and with a look of disgust as if to say "so i KNOW what you and dad have been doing"

When I told my primary class, I was having a baby. One little girl asked in horror, “Does your husband know?” 🤣 whilst a boy asked with a tone of slight disgust, “Does that mean you’ve had sex?”

With my own children, I answered questions as they came up so there was never a big discussion.

Does your husband know?

@ShowOfHands

On her first day of school, dd role played a cesarean in the home corner. Her baby brother was 4 days old. She apparently explained placentas and umbilical cords (a plastic plate and a skipping rope) to a gaggle of new classmates. She's 13 now and her friends still talk about it.

We just answered as they asked so they knew from 3ish, same as they knew about lungs and respiration.

haha! Great! When I was due my 2nd my eldest daughter who was 3 yrs put a doll up her jumper, got on a chair and asked me to be the doctor while she gave birth. .
"mummy, you must shout PUSH!! " and then a few grunts later a beautiful little baby bjorn was born. She had been watching Home and Away.

We watch nature programmes and have chickens including cockerels so the boy+girl thing is zero mystery and that's how it should be. We have talked about our bodies in age appropriate language from day one and my DD was to be found inspecting her privates with my ceiling to floor mirror in my bedroom as a toddler from which a chat naturally came about so my kids have total ownership of information over their bodies and what they do, they also have complete autonomy over what happens to them including stuff like brushing their hair so that 'i say no' is a response which has no inhibitions to overcome should the need ever arise. Hair brushing and body care still happens cos they can see the need for it.
The book Mummy Laid An Egg is SO superb for making sense without being cringe and without giving more information than is needed at a young age. It is also a hilarious story which helps.

Even chats like 'what are belly buttons for?' are handy. If you welcome their curiosity and chat about it normally there is no ick or weird attached to it, good atmosphere to have in the house for the teenage years, you never know when they need to talk about something and the less taboo that is the better imo

My 8yo hasn't asked yet. I thought he would by now, so I might leave a book around (he'll come to me with any questions).

My approach was forged from a childhood of parents who were mortified with embarrassment over anything to do with bodies, ignorance and silence was encouraged. All normal life stages were considered best ignored, to my detriment in many ways. I'm not doing that to my kids.

I didn't wait for questions about reproduction any more than I waited for questions about digestion or breathing or counting or reading - I made sure that I gave them age-appropriate information about the world around them from when they were babies. So things like using accurate words for their genitals when washing or changing a baby. For teeny toddlers this might mean talking about how X was growing a baby in her tummy, or how a baby was drinking milk from its mummy. Mentioning that there are all sorts of different families, but that each baby starts out as a sperm and egg which when joined together have all the instructions needed to grow into a baby ready to be born, and then into a grown-up. And so on. DD asked more questions because she read lots of books about families and relationships, whereas DS didn't have much curiousity beyond how his own body worked and interesting science. So I've had to actually tell him stuff because he there's no way he would ever ask about stuff like periods, and I'm not prepared to let him grow into the sort of man who thinks women pee from their vaginas and can hold in menstrual blood.

Yes, it's definitely about being aware of gaps and making sure they aren't going into adulthood or even through childhood with no clue. We have always used proper words too.
I think it also depends on who they are around. My older children saw me pregnant so were interested in that a lot and were around more people who were pregnant or had babies. So pregnancies, giving birth, breastfeeding all around them so stirrd natural curiosity.

My youngest son not so much as he's very much the youngest of our family and friendship groups, so has been more interested in questions of puberty. Why is my big brother's voice changed? Will mine? What will happen?
We have always been open from the beginning too. All mine have asked about periods from as soon as they could talk because they have all come into the bathroom with me and asked about me bleeding and mooncups etc.. . All bathed with me and their dad so aware of differences. So questions have always arisen from that.
I think that's an easier way to normalise it rather than having to sit down at some point and explain it all which was more normal in my childhood.

Ds picked the basics of reproduction up very young from wild life programs. He'd seen everything from turtles, lions, giraffes to elephants in the act. Even salmon spawning was informative.

When he was around 7 we also went through an age appropriate book together, think it was Let's Talk.

Hmmm difficult one tbh. My 6yo DD has been asking. I want to tell her factually but she's at that age where she shares her new found knowledge with anyone who will listen. I have genuine nightmares of her telling my prudish parents about it in great detail (like they don't know already!)