Explaining the facts of life to your young children.......................................... here we go!!

[Sparkler1]

DD1 (7.5) has just been into the toilet and said
"Mummy, there is something in a box on the floor and it says TEMPAX ( ) what is it for?"

I responded with "um, um, well darling it's something that you don't really need to know about too much until you are a bigger irl but basically it's something mummy needs to use sometimes"

She insisted that I tell her more - so I did, but very carefully and gently without wanting to make her afraid. She seemed very interested and not at all worried.

So there, my first Mum and Big Girl chat done and dusted. Awwwwww! - what happened to my little baby girl?

my ds's v au fait with all this..... ds2 (7) on bus, "muumy is it your period now? are you using a tampax RIGHT NOW?"

• DD just made me lol when she said tEmpax instead of A!

i once asked a female collegue if she had some tippex... she rummaged in her desk and handed me a tampax!

My dd (4) knows about mummy having blood sometimes and she understands and accepts it is just a broken egg except it's red not yellow....But one day she asked me how I got into her tummy,

You came from a seed I said...

But how did the seed get there mummy?

Erm...daddy planted it...

How did he plant it mummy?

Erm...!

(Cue swift change of subject - how do you tell a 4 year old without confusing them??)

you just take a deep breath and.... tell them imo. if you start with v simple explanations when they're 4 it's not embaressing... if you avoid it when are you going to start?

I find this hard. I don't want to lie but where on earth do you begin?

The seed came out of daddy's willy which he put in mummy. Then the seed went to find mummy's egg inside my body. They met and joined together and grew and grew until they made YOU! Then you grew from a tiny little thing much smaller than my fingernail in a special place in my tummy where you were warm and safe until you were big enought to be born. Isn't that wonderful and amazing? Would you like to look at a book about it?

I think that sounds great. For some reason its the willy bit that I freeze up at.

Hey Aloha, can I borrow that? Tried to explain to ds but he seems to have come away with the idea that mummy eats the baby... (despite having read Mummy Laid an Egg). Think it's the word 'seed' that is confusing him.

aw, go on! Once you do it you'll be amazed at how easy it is.

My ds started asking questions aged about four when we were all in the car. So I told him roughly what I just put, and he said, 'that sounds like fun! I can't wait to be a man and have a wife and some funny little babies'

well that will be so much less embaressing if you leave it 'til she's ooooh..... 10? 11? 14?

My DS1 is 9 and hasn't asked any questions yet! I know he knows some bits from school and i do have the mummy laid an egg book but he hasn't looked at it yet.
Is he unusual not to of asked?

Four year olds are unembarrassable! It really helps IMO that they don't see bodies as romotely shameful or sexual. They think they are nice and funny. Willies are just willies. There is a fantastic interactive section in the natural history museum about the human body which features all kinds of stuff about how vision works, how muscles and reflexes work etc, plus a lot on human reproduction including a truly giant foetus (baby) and lifesize models of naked children and adults, which dd (nearly two) loved. 'look! Boy willy! Daddy willy!'
It's just on the right as you go into the dinosaur bit and I highly recommend it.

I always try to tell them as much as they ask and not necessarily further. So DS2 (who is now 5) has known that babies grow in a special place called a uterus for ages now. He insists that when he and his best friends were fetuses they used to play football against each other in the Uterus Cup!

DS2: How does the seed get out of daddy's body?
Me: It comes out of his penis.
DS2: What, like wee?
Me: Well, the seeds are so tiny you can't see them, and they are in a liquid, but it isn't wee.
DS2: Can I watch my Peter Rabbit video now?

So info on insertion and delivery method has not been forthcoming yet. But I will tell him when he asks.

Tortoise, i too have a ds 9 who hasn't asked any questions. I've absolutely no idea if he knows anything at all about sex. I do wonder if i should sit him down and tell him the basics or leave it until he asks. I don't want him to pick up a load of rubbish from the school playground.

I would have thought these days that they know by 9.

ROFL at the Uterus Cup! DD (5) knows she grew in my tummy & the doctors took her out (emergency CS) but she hasn't really asked how she got there. TTC just now so we're looking forward to all the awkward questions (fingers crossed) to come.

I can't find any good books on this for a three year old. Can anyone suggest one?

I really don't know what to tell my DD who's 8. She knows she grew in my tummy from an egg, but that's it. She hasn't asked anything else and she was told this when she was 4. I'm pretty sure she hasn't been told anything else at school yet. I keep thinking I should get a book, but don't know if I should wait until she asks. What if she never asks?! And what book do I get??

Who's ds was it that got all their sanitary towels out of her bag on a long car journey and had stuck them all over the windows?

My ds did this recently but luckily he'd only used one and I managed to pull it off before other drivers saw it

I got the book 'made with love' for my dd when she was 4 as she'd started asking questions. She wanted it read to her for a few nights in a row, asked a few questions and that was it really. She's just accepted it as another piece of information about how the world works.

Am pg now and in the early weeks was very sick and didnt want to tell her we were having a baby just yet but didnt want her to worry i was ill so told her i had the egg at the first stage and it might grow into a baby but it might not, sometimes they dont work properly but that was why i was being sick. Was so glad she already had an understanding of it so i didnt have to overwhelm all at once with lots of new info.

my ds1 once came into my bedroom at around 5L45 in the morning decorated with sanitary towels and tampax - he was a wounded soldier apparently

the other day i had a friend round. my hand bag was in the kitchen
ds1 came in clutching a tampon saying this fell out of your bag - one of those sticks that you put in your lady bits'

lol

Ha, my dd(2.11) had hiccups today as we were walking to the shops so I told her that she used to get hiccups when she was in my tummy and that I could feel them. She thought this was hilarious and said 'did a monster put me in your tummy'? And to my shame I said 'yes' but then thought I better tell her the truth. My policy is to be truthful and straightforward about it all from the minute they ask. I have distinct memories of being very dissappointed when my friends told me the 'facts of life' at about 10 as I realised it was just that stuff my mum was always jabbering on about

I want to be the one to tell my daughter. My Momnever had a conversation with me and I found out from my friends and from stumbling on to my dad's porn. Unfortunatly nothing as classy as Playboy.