Facts of Life for 4 year olds

[indignatio]

ds is nearly 4. new baby due in Jan. ds is not offically aware of my pregnancy as yet. We have had several vague discussions about babies and where they come from as many friends have been having babies recently. So far the party line has been: mummies have eggs in their tummies and if an egg gets fertilized then a baby starts to grow and comes out of mummies tummy when it's ready. So far so good - he has picked up from somewhere else that babies come out of mummies bottoms when they are ready. When he asks about fertilization I have distracted him and so not had to answer the question. I have bought two books "Made with love" by Kate Petty and "How did I begin" by Mick Manning. I have not shown him either as yet (as both have parts I consider a little too explicit for his age). So I have several questions arising out of this:

1.How much information should I give him. Special cuddle sounds fine to me - penis and vagina interaction does not. He is v v curious and if he doesn't ask the question immediately, several days later in Tescos he will ask - in a loud voice HOW DOES DADDYS SPERM GET INTO YOUR TUMMY

2.Should I forwarn the mothers of his close group of friends that we have going to have this talk. I ask this because on being told how dinasours became extinct, he managed to tell everyone he met over the next 3 weeks. Including repeatedly the friend who had given him the information in the first place.

3.If your advice is to steer away from penis and vagina chat, at what age would you advocate having this discussion.

4.Who told you the facts of life? At what age? and did you understand it correctly? (personally - my next door neighbour(12) when I was 11 and I certainly got the wrong end of the stick!)

Many thanks in advance

my five year old doesnt know about the nescessary joining of mommys bits and daddys bits to get a baby. He knows that babies come from mommys "peach"- but he thinks that they get there from mommy finding a seed in the garden(?!), she puts it in her peach and it grows, then comes back down.

dont know when to bring the daddy bits into it, i still feel that he is a little too young to understand, plus i know that he is one for shouting out any new bit of info. if he saw a young couple kissing- i know he would shout "are they making a baby?"

oh and the "peach" thing, dont ask, he came home from nursery one day with that name for female bits, obviously one of the little girls there has that name for it.

funny though when we ask him if he wants a peach yoghurt.

I wouldn't worry about your ds telling all his friends though. the fact is that if you keep the whole thing down beat and not a big deal then it really is quite boring to a 4 year old. Dinosaur extinction is a totally different matter!

I finally got round to telling my 9 yr old ds about periods the other day (I've been waiting for them to ask what my tampons were for for years). as soon as I mentioned 'girls' and 'growing up' I could see ds's eyes glaze over. His response to my much planned explanation ... 'Is Wayne rooney better than Ronaldinho?

Thanks for all these great posts. Given the prurient interest he has already shown in such matters I wish to be totally prepared for any question.

following on from being pg with little bro we told out 2 the facts at age 3 and 4 within reason. ds1 knows he was c-section but that ds2 was 'natural'. had to explain that ladies have 3 holes, one for wee, one for poo and one for babies.

ds1 now aged 6 comes into my bedroom yesterday, looks at me curiously for couple of minutes then asks, 'mummy, can i see the hole where babies come from'. oh dear.

No one has thankfully asked how the sperm gets in. how do you answer that one

ernest - dd1 was asking about this a few months ago ( she's 4) and she was happy with daddy's seed was planted inside mummy when they had a special cuddle. Not lots of questions about exactly HOW it gets there ( yet!) I'm sure that will be next. I think they will ask questions as and when they are ready - I certainly didnt want to get into penis/vagina ect at her age just yet.

thanks ernest and hanna - i think from all the advice given, I'm only stuck on the age appropriate wording for how the sperm gets to the egg in mummy's tummy.
I KNOW i will be asked

I agree with WWB et al....simple truth, matter of fact, and child led.

My mother told me when I persisted in asking aged 8, and I was totally disgusted and confused: she said the man puts a drop of pee in the woman -
Reality was very reassuring

Thanks elibean - shamelessly bumping this for evening advice

We have had lots of questions about reproduction, but curiously neither has ever asked how the seed and the egg get together. DS1 at about 4 was very interested in how the baby got out, and like other children here, asked to see the hole ("I'll get a book, darling"). He was more interested in the idea of a tiny hole stretching - I ended up saying it was like a stocking, really small but really stretchy.

DS2 (4) asked today whether the man's seeds were in his stomach, so I explained that they were made in his testicles. I was expecting the question about how they got there, but he didn't ask. I would have told him the truth, though. I have told both of them about periods, in response to questions about red wee/tampons.

When I was about 4 my mum told me that babies come out of mummy's tummy's and that this happens after people get married. (This was the 70's - given that DH and I weren't married when DS was born, I might find a different way of saying this). I don't think I was interested in how the baby got there until I was about 7. When I asked my mum told me and bought me a book. I expect my twin brother found out about all this at about the same time as I would have told him, but I don't remember him being particularly interested.

My mother told me, the lot, rather clinically, when I was about three. Can't say it either shocked or scarred me. I was convinced, though, that the whole thing took place in a hospital - kind of connecting up a pipe scenario - under the watchful auspices of at least two white-coated medics.

I like Mummy Laid An Egg, although we have also had to do a slight editing in terms of lesbian mothers (there are some in the family).

DD1 is now five and did ask me in the supermarket the other day how you tell it's the special sort of cuddle that makes a baby.

pmsl mi at the idea of it all happening in hospital. i have no memory at all of my mum telling me but she swears she did. clearly made an impact. I think I already knew. I can remember once being teased because I said I didn;t know what "the facts of life" were. It was a huge source of injustice because in fact I did know (honest) but hadn't heard them called that. Of course none of my friends believed my vehement protestations.