Explaining tampax, pads and periods to little ones

[TeddyBared]

Just a quickie.... my three sons are little and probably don't need it all explained right now, but I do not want to be like my mother was around the subject of periods.

She never told me about periods and was always embarrassed about the whole thing. I want to be able to have my personal items in my cupboard, never hide them under lock and key like she did and be reasonably open about what they are for.

I have a friend who has three sons around ten and I admire the way she has her tampax out in the bathroom. They are not hidden and it is not all a big secret.

Anyone got any suggestions as to how to explain these things now when my sons are little and as they get older? I don;t want to frighten them!!

Get a mooncup

Sorry, have nothing useful to say, other than to ask what does your friend tell her sons, do you know?

Hmm not at that stage yet, but be honest?

My mother never got round to explaining tampons. I didn't have a clue what they were for but used to unwrap them and use as bolster pillows for Sindy's bed.

This thread made me laugh out loud when I read it. A friend of mine told her dd (aged 3) that they were 'special mummy plasters'....very embarrassing when a couple of weeks later her dd came downstairs (during a party) and had them stuck to her knees!!

Another friend showed her dd a tampax and said that mummies out these up their bottoms. She was 4 and had asked. I thougt that this was a bit too much information but her dd got her back. When they were standing at the butcher counter in Asda, they had boxes of the salami stuff in packets, you know then long green ones? She asked her mum very loudly if she out these up her bottome as well!!

I still laugh at both stories when I think of them!!

lesson - be careful what you say....it may come back to haunt you!!

i have always had mine around but once went to a small local shop where they put them into a paper bag

my kids thought i had sweets once i got back to the car - this kind of forced the issue.

i remember telling them something like i bled from my tuppence - it was normal all girls go through this when they are teenagers and it means they are growing up and becomming a young lady.

to my eldest ds credit (bless) he was v. concerned for his sister but i said it wasn't something to be concerned about - it was a good thing becuase it was completley normal and it was the bodies way of saying " i am ok"

its the positive slant thats the key.

and i would advise against a formal situation - just leave them out and see if questions are asked.

I told ds when he asked (aged about 2 or 3 I think), that my body gets ready every month in case a baby starts growing. If a baby doesn't grow then the old, soft lining it would have grown in, comes out of my body ready to make way for a fresh lot the next month. If I didn't use sanitary protection my clothes would get messed up, so I catch the blood with and get rid of it that way.

I tried not to talk about blood, which to a child means you have cut yourself, or imply it was dirty or anything, and I told him it didn't hurt me.

I think it's a good idea to have your sanitary protection around, and just wait for them to ask you. I don't think any age is too young and it does avoid the embarrassment aspect if they know about it from a very early age.

"PUT" it should read instead of "OUT" was laughing so much that my typing suffered there!!

ds1 asked in Feb this year when my periods started again after ds2.
ds1 was 4.5 at the time, and had been 2.7 when I got pg with ds2 which I guess was too young to ask what I was doing when I put a tampon in.
I had tampons in the bathroom before but now have a mooncup, but as the kids are around all the time and he often comes into the loo to talk to me he saw the mooncup and asked what it was.
He already knew the basics of sex and reproduction, so I carried this on and explained about the womb lining blood and how if a baby doesn't start to grow then the egg and the blood have to come out so that the womb can start a new womb lining in case next month's egg grows a baby.
I also said it is a natural monthly thing that happens to a woman, and that it isn't because I had cut or hurt myself.

oops I said blood in my explanation!

I can't remember what exactly I said

I think I just said the soft spongy lining, or something

I am trying not to sound critical but I am really surprised that everybody has such trouble talking about this with their children. It is a really normal bodily function and everyone needs to know how the female body works - I can understand being embarrassed about it as a young girl or teenager, but as an adult woman who has given birth?

no everyone F&Z - I am sure there are lots who don't. But I do know what you are saying, and agree. It's only a big thing if you make it into one, and the younger they know the easier because teenage giggles about it aren't there.

It is not me who is embarrassed about it ... my mother was and it was how I was brought up.

I just do not want to frighten my young sons and want to be able to approach the whole thing age appropriately and wanted suggestions from those who had already explained.

My oldest howls if he cuts himself and there's any blood. Blood coming out of my 'bits' might be too much for him to handle!!!

I use a mooncup but i told my elder son about periods more because I needed to explain why 1 day a month I shout and am tired and in pain...I needed him to know it was not his fault when I was tearful etc. Luckily my PMT only lasts for one day, literally the day my period arrives.
He was very understanding and I;m glad i did tell him, as he saw blood one day in the loo and was very worried.

He was about 7 and we had already talked about where babies come from etc and how mummies get pregnant.

My other son has not asked! I can only assume his brother has already told him!

My (clean and boiled!!) mooncup went missing last month. I had a hunch I might find it in my sons' room. It was being used as part of an elaborate robot model....

I think the important thing is to be honest and explain it simply (depending on age).

You could try this book

although the review below on the page says otherwise(!), it's a good, straightforward, honest explanation about puberty designed for younger kids to understand.

This is completely hypothetical for me as DS is only 16 months (altho he does love to empty all my tampons out of their box and put them away again), but would think the best thing to do is just answer the questions as asked e.g. some children would be happy with the 'something that grown-ups use' answer, but others might want a bit more info.

I started a thread on this a while back. Advice was to just be honest!

DD1 asked again a few weeks ago (after forgetting all about it first time round). So I went with the MN party line and told the truth, the whole truth and mothing but the truth

I think she got it... special seed meets little egg in mummy's tummy, which makes a baby... if no seed, no baby, then a little bit of bleeding instead... and that's what tampon is for etc.

She didn't ask how the seed got there (thankfully.. I'd exhausted my 'biology for 3yr olds' know how by that point )

When Ds1 was about 2- 2 1/2, I heard him out in the garden , shouting to the girl next door "Hannah would you like an ice lollie". Oh that's nice I thought, then I realised we didn't have nay ice lollies. So I went to investigate. Here was DS1 with my tampx super size box, throwing them over the fence into next doors garden.

There is nothing more embarassing than having to go and ask your neighbours for your tampax back.

On the subject of the OP though, I don't use them now, as I ahve the depo injection, so they aren't lying around the house. It has never cropped up in ocnversation

i think the only reason that people are a bit cautious is the assoication between blood and hurting in kids minds? rather than because they think it's horrible, a curse etc etc

Yes of course we shouldn't be embarrassed F&Z, but if brought up by very embarrassed parents, it can still come back to haunt you slightly so I understand what TeddyB means.

I dislike having periods so much (although less so at the moment because I am always so pleased not to be pregnant) that it is quite hard for me to sound positive, and I do worry that although I try to be positive, my learned embarrassment and disgust still comes through.

It just doesn't go away. I said to my mum a few years ago that I was using washable sanitary towels and her response was 'how REPELLENT' in a particularly unpleasant tone of voice. Brought back many unhappy memories.

I'm glad I don't have a daughter (for the daughter's sake). Hope ds marries an unembarrassed person.

choosy - my mum never told me very much about periods, and what she did tell me had me an almost hysterical wreck!
it wasn't until I was 17, and went to work in an old folks home, that I began to relax more about them. it sounds really odd I suppose, but the women I worked with, all of whom were a good 15-20 years older than me, were very open about when they had their periods, PMT etc .
My mother used to be mortified about the boxes of tampax sitting in the bathroom "what if DH/DSes?PIL/ etc see them" was her cry

DD asked me about this a few months ago, she is nearly 7, and I explained to her in as much of a biological way as I could with her understanding what was happening to my body, why it happened and when it would happen to her. She sees it as something that just happens to your body now, the same way she understands the digestive system, how I'm going to get my baby out of my belly and how being too fat can make you ill, if you explain it as simply as possible, but as honestly as possible, when they ask, then I think it becomes something they think they always knew when it comes to talking about it again in the future.

I'm with FrannyandZooey on this one, my dd asked about tampons a while back, (just turned 3) and I explained in very similar way, I added in a bit about growing up to become a woman I think. SHe wasn't bothered, just interested. My perspective as always been tell them the truth in simple language but not euthemisms when they ask, hopefully really young so that you can just keep going over main points and filling in more detail as they older.
My parents did this, so I have no memory of a 'sex talk' 'period talk' or anything like that I just 'always ' knew.

[btw mine haven't returned yet after ds they were out cos we were moving and since then the dcs bloody played with them and opened them up and dunked them in water so will have to invest in mooncup when periods do eventually return - and explain that as well as using 'cotton wool' you can use this...