How to best answer questions

[Buster51]

DS, now 5, has said in a few conversations we've now had that he came out of my tummy.

He refers to his BM as "tummy mummy", (although I follow this up with her name, & birth mum). But I'm starting to wonder if he actually understands in that calling her "tummy mummy" means he came out of her tummy, or it is just simply a "name" he uses??

My other thought is that it could be because he wants to believe he did? Possibly naively we had just assumed that he was aware in that calling her tummy mummy, meant that she gave birth to him. This will all hopefully make a lot more sense to him once his life story book is complete.

But I was wondering about the best way to respond in this situation, so far I have said: remember it was BM who gave birth to you, you were in her tummy, but then you came to live with mummy & daddy.

And oh I wish you did come from my tummy but remember it was BM....

BM carried you in her tummy then you came to live with us, sometimes mummies don't carry their children in their tummies but someone else does.

Gosh I really hope I have answered him ok! He just tends to nod after I have responded & leaves it at that. Any thoughts / advice at all would be welcome :)

No advice really other than I'm having a similar conversation with our DD. She has been asking for a little sister and pointing to my stomach saying there's a baby in there. I've said that DD grew in another lady's tummy (DD never met her BM and is younger (3) ). I tell her that that lady couldn't look after her and so mummy and daddy will look after her forever.

She does the same thing, nods and walks off (or more recently asks to look at photos of her as a baby). The cogs are definitely whirring but I don't want to overload her.

I think that sounds fine, he's just trying to make sense of it all, and you will need to keep re-inforcing it.

Buster51 we had the same with dd, whom I think was about 10 at the time. Her bm (deceased) was married to my dh but he isn't her bf. Dd was 11 months when he met them. So dd knows there was a bf, it's in her life story book. Then one day I realised that she though somehow dh was also a bf because he had sex with her bm. As we had already dealt with the birds and the bees at that point I had thought she would connect the dots but clearly she didn't. I think what you're doing is fine. You are giving him facts and one day the penny will drop and he will understand when he's ready. Can you get some library books about families having babies and families adopting? Maybe it will start to make more sense to him if he hears stories of other children who are the same as him.

Buster that sounds fine, you are doing well. It will take a while for it to all sink in but I hope when it does he will know it as if he has always known it.