How do you explain periods to a 3 year old?

[hollyhobbie]

DD has just seen me using tampons for the first time. It's my first period since her brother was born over a year ago and before then she was too small to notice and ask.

How do I explain it all to her? She's 3 so I don't want to get too technical, but want to give an honest answer. She was so excited by it, she wanted DH to come and see "the string"

just say that each month your body gets ready in case a baby grows, but if no baby is there, the soft lining that the baby would have laid on, comes out of your body and it would make a mess on your clothes if you didn't use something to catch it

LOL at "come and see the string"

This is pretty much what I told my dd at about the same age.

As you grow up your body starts to change, on the inside and on the outside, and one of these changes is that your body starts to get ready for when you are really grown up and want to have babies.

Ladies can have babies because they have eggs inside them, and every month one of these eggs starts to get ready to make a baby, just in case that's what the lady wants. If the lady doesn't make a baby then the egg is washed away, and that's called a period.

There is a bit of blood, but you wear special liners in your knickers or tampons inside to stop it getting on your clothes. It doesn't hurt like a cut, it's not that kind of bleeding.

Otherwise, just answer the question she asks - don't go into huge amounts of detail.