5 year old wants to know ALL about how babies are born

[ForPetesSakeNotAgain]

Looking for some advice please. 5 year old DS is very inquisitive. He has started taking a huge interest in how babies are made. We have told him that you need an egg inside a lady and a man puts a seed inside the lady and together the egg and the seed make a baby. This is clearly not enough for him. At breakfast he said he wanted to know how the man puts the seed in there - EXACTLY where does it go in and how does he do it (the word EXACTLY suggests he knows he is treading on embarrassing ground!). Fortunately I had a sufficiently bad choking fit that I had to leave the table so I escaped that time. But I know that once he has started with a question he will keep at it until he gets an answer he is happy with.
I have always tried to be honest (well excepting Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy) but I am nervous that if I pluck up the courage to tell him the truth about this (or maybe persuade DH to ) , it will be the first thing he tells all the other children in his class when school restarts after Easter. I don't want to spend an evening fielding irate phone calls.

Tell him. He wouldn't ask if he didn't need to know. A book might help; try library

How Your Body Works (Usborne) is quite good. Or Mummy Laid An Egg.

Thanks for the push in the right direction. I have ordered a couple of books now but they will take a couple of weeks to get to me as we live overseas. It's probably about time I said something to our 9 year old who seems much less interested in the subject and the books will be handy for him too.

Any thoughts on how to persuade the 5 year old not to do his own impromptu sex education lesson for the rest of his class (I know him too well!)? I fear if I tell him not to it will only increase the likelihood he will!

Tell him it straight. If he is anything like my boys he will wander off and lose interest long before you have got to the really gory bits.
Unlike my friends DD who aged 4 said very loudly at the school gates "Eh I came out of your VAGINA mum"

I agree with the 'just tell him' approach. Make it as dull and matter-of-fact as you can and he'll not think it worth passing on? I think only giving bits of info and acting a bit weird about it only increases curiosity and turns it into the taboo, need-to-know subject.

My Dad gave me a very factual, dry biology lesson. I also lived on a farm, which maybe helped though. It didn't seem all that interesting to me.

Just tell him. I told DS when he was about 5 and at first he thought I was joking! "Hahaha! Mama, are you joking!?... Oh... you mean it? Hahaha!"

When you all just say, do you mean just say 'the man puts his penis inside the woman'?

i really dont get why people get so uncomfortable with the whole baby making thing! as long as your not using crude terms then just tell him!
if he's still curious, let him watch one born every minute, that will put him off for life

bytheMoonlight glad you raised the actual wording because I often wonder just how graphic to be and exactly how graphic everyone else is in their explanations! I will hand on heart admit to being uncomfortable explaining the actual mechanics because I know my DS has a very "inquisitive" personality and I do shy away from being too descriptive at this stage (he's 8). They know all the proper names for their body parts to the extent that my 4 yr old DD corrected me the other night when I referred to her "twinkle" in the bath -"it's not my twinkle mummy it's my labia" - that was me told

I also remember my own TOTAL incredulity when I found out what couples do to make a baby (I was probably about 10). I couldn't conceive of a universe where two people could do such a thing!

I would really like to explain it in a way that doesn't scar them for life or make it sound too clinical and unpleasant!

My 4 year old neice wanted to know how I was having my baby, because her older brother came out of mummy's tummy but she came from her bottom.. She's good!

I wish I could be as sanguine about all this as everyone else seems to be! I have this worrying thought that in the spirit of enquiry DS2 will innocently suggest to some little girl at school that they find out whether it is indeed possible or is Mum just joking. I don't want him doing a souped up version of "you show me yours and I'll show you mine"

Yep, tell him the facts, using the correct words. We have several books & dS (6) goes through phases where he's fascinated and other times when he isn't interested. He'll ask when he wants more info & I'll tell him.

DD (aged 7) knows the facts about periods and has had an abridged version of sex. She hasn't asked for the full details yet, so we haven't told her, but will, as soon as she asks.

However, whenever we have these conversations, I say something like ....

"This is a private conversation between you and me. Some mummys and daddys haven't chosen to talk to their children about this yet, so you must not talk about it on the playground. You can always come and talk to me about it and ask me any questions you like.".

Ooh I like the bit about the playground Littlefish. I'll definitely use that one.

Thanks everyone for all your help. I feel much better prepared now. Of course now I'm prepared he'll probably never ask again :)

We have the Let's talk about where baby's come from book, it was bought for DD1 many years ago and now DD2 is fascinated by it.

I did stop her taking it to school for her teacher to read during snack time by telling her that it might put her teacher off her banana but so far she hasn't talked about any of the issues in it with any of her friends. She is 5 going on 6 and seems more interested in the pictures of difference between the male and female bodies than anything else.

I'm expecting in June. Both my ds(5) and dd(3) know how it will come out and how it got in.

They have both watched OBEM too as well as a few US c/sections when I was heaving in the bathroom for a couple of hours and they'd put on the tele.

At my son's school they have recently started preparing US for the sex education part of the curriculum. And the head teacher made a very valid point. She asked us all to think about how or what we remembered about being told about the facts of life. The concensus was, the younger the better. The myths and difficulties of THAT conversation when children are older is excruitiating! Be factual, answer questions and Littlefishes point about the playground is spot on!