OK, a non-funny thread about what exactly to tell a 4-yr-old who is asking how humans mate?

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

Have you tried this book by Babette Cole? It gives a biologically correct explaination without being gross and too much in your face.

Message withdrawn

I don't get this - you either tell them, put them off, or lie to them.
Presumably you don't want to lie, but it sounds like you don't want to tell him either?

I read the title and tought immediately: Mummy laid an egg! Hilarious and worked very well on my DS (4.4)

Lol about the petri dish- that definately would be an easier explanation!

The book basically says that mummy makes eggs and daddy makes seeds and daddy has a tube to help the seeds get to the eggs (are you following??) and then there's lots of funny, Babette Cole pictures of the ways mummies and daddies get together. Take a look next time you go in a book shop and see if you wouldn't find it too embarressing.

We used to read it to 3 and 4 year olds at a nursery school I worked at and they didn't run away crying or anything.

pruners i'd tell the truth but only as much as will stop the questioning

agree with daddy tube and mummy special lady place and see how that goes down? be biologically correct, always find that goes down better. We explained with eggs and seeds as well.

Message withdrawn

I told the truth, in as matter as fact way as possible, enough to stop being bombarded with questions. It was a lot easier than I thought.
I was so matter of fact that he forgot and asked me again a couple of years later.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

ah I see!
Not sure then, I pretty much told ds all of it just before he was 4. I was suprised that he didn't go into pre-school and tell everyone, as he had told them in dramatic detail about mossies sucking blood the week before.
I started off with very basics, and he kept questioning, so I kept explaining.
About a year later (a few months ago) he came to me in horror and told me that daddy and I must have done the baby making thing TWICE (he has a younger sibling), I explained that actually it was more than twice as you could stop a baby starting - he said "oh..." then launched into something completely unrelated.

my DS1 was 5 a couple of weeks after DD was born. which means he was 4 and half-ish when he was wanting the same information. Luckily there was a fantastic programme called "life before birth" which started with egg/sperm imagery, then used actual 3D / 4D(so-called) scans to show the unborn baby growing, with a fantastic commentary explanation and then a non-gory and no detail birth which was just seconds of mum and cut to new baby. DS was fascinated and it answered everything he needed to know. Mine is a serious and intense little person too, bit of a worrier, and thinks very deeply about these things. No way were we going to fob him off with cliches, so I think it would be worth you hunting through the local library or BBC website to see if you could find this programme or something along these lines.

But it is a difficult thing to tackle, I can only sound blase about it now because it was 10 years ago. Not sure I was so blase about it at the time. Probably quite sweaty palmed.
And he used to have a habit of asking how babies came about in public, you'd be standing in the queue at Woolies and it'd be 'Mum how do people make babies'
Never mind dd will ask soon, I expect, I'm going to say 'ask your father'

I read this book to dd when she was 4 after she'd started asking questions and starting a similar thread on here myself for advice. It all kicked off abit but actually that helped me see more clearly how I felt about it all iyswim.

We had to read the book at every bedtime for a few nights and we had some funny interesting questions that I had to try very hard not to giggle at! But that was it and she just accepted it. She still goes back to the book for a read every now and then but then she does that with all her books.

found it - "life before birth"
which turned out to be ch4 / Pioneer productions, not BBC
OK so it isn't precisey "how" they mate - but plenty to keep him well informed on the whole issue.

You answer the question that they ask you.

You shouldn't feel that you have to given them any more information than they ask for, so just because they ask one question you don't have to tell them everything

When they ewant more information they will ask,

Stay calm, it is no big deal. be honest
Check that they are satisfied with the answer and they are not confused

Relax!

Pruners, my ds is the same - he is 8 now, but he has always loved animals, how the body works, etc. I bought him a (i think) Doring Kindersly book about the Human body, as well as a Torchlight book about the Human Body. Both really just refer to the egg and the sperm, and that has really been all we needed to discuss How Babies Are Made for ages "Daddies have sperm, mummies have eggs, they join together..."
Both Dc's didn't ask for ages about anything more specific than that. But we have discussed the uterus, and that the vagina is a special tube that the babies come out of.

I think that ds has looked in his books and figured some of the rest out. He is just scientifically minded, so I would rather tell him the truth, even if it is not ALL of it.

Good Luck

There is a whole conception, pregnancy and birth section at the Exploratory in Bristol that explains everything they would need to know.

It has a video of a sperm being released (nothing porno/graphic) and it going through the womens reproductive system and finding an egg, it also has model fetuses at different stages in gestation and a wob that you sit in and you can hear the muffled explantion and rocking/vibrations of labour. All very interesting.

Except MB - when your button-bright 7 year old is asking you on the way to the bus "but HOW can you choose to have just two children?" - and you are saying, well, sometimes the seed finds the egg and sometimes it doesn't, and she is saying "but I don't UNDERSTAND, that doesn't make SENSE, WHAT stops it finding the egg?" and is not being fobbed off with "well just sometimes it doesn't" ... then I have visions of being able to call down a SuperBeing in her lab coat to dispatch these questions (& the questioner) effectively

When DD asked me - and I had no idea where it had come from (I was in a state of shock!!) I basically told her that Daddy gave me a seed. This seemed to be enough information at the time and she never asked anymore questions.

UNTIL

One day we were in the health food shop, and obviously DD had been thinking that she would like a sibling, at the top of her voice asked if these seeds were the ones that Daddy gave me to get a baby! (they were sunflower seeds! The cashier laughed, I quickly mumbled something and fled out of the shop!

A wob WCL?!

Sounds great though, I think dd would love all that, might have to make it a half term trip. She missed the school trip to @Bristol cos she was ill. Is this the same place or a different one? [clueless]
Which one is better, assuming they're different places?

I'm with MB, just answer the questions you are asked in a simple factual way and see where it goes. I found when my two were small (round about the four mark I think)that they didn't listen to my explanation much, because I had to go through it several times, but they were satisfied and then the questions dried up. A few years later they and started again and it seemed that they had forgotten everything but asked much more detailed questions (but how mummy...). I ended up givig them the full works, and then they giggled a lot and said yuck...

Now it's just something they know, so it doesn't seem a particularly big deal to talk about dd's eggs being formed in my womb and ds's testicles making the sperm every day when he hits puberty (although when he asked where did they go I did say they got reabsorbed - I guess I'll have to do the wet dreams bit soon).

My dh has had the snip. As had my dog, which we had (jokingly) said he (dog) has gotten his testicles chopped off.

Cue dd saying that since daddy has had his testicles chopped off, could we just get some sperm from somewhere else, so we can have another baby???

apols v much skim read but fwiw I think a no-euphemism rule is good.
I did something along the lines of 'daddy put his seed, which is called sperm, into mummy's vagina with his penis. it swims upwards till it meets mummy's egg and then..

KABOOM! the sperm and the egg join together and make a baby!

Then pause, sweating. Wait and see if the sudden KABOOM! worked to er.. move things forward.

And if he does want further info, refer him to his father continue along the lines of " the baby grows bigger and bigger inside mummy's womb near my tummy. then when it's big enough, it starts to come out, back down through my vagina which is increeeeedibly stretchy. AND IT WAS YOU!