Hellobee Boards

My son just turned 5 and keeps asking. I’m not sure what’s age appropriate. “Did the doctor put it in you??”

I told my 3 year old that girls have eggs and boys have sperm and when you’re older the eggs can turn into babies. But the eggs are just eggs until then. We have watched some conception videos on YouTube (when we told her I was pregnant with #3) where the sperm go to the egg so now she knows only one sperm makes it. I probably have mentioned about penis and vagina, but I can’t remember and it wasn’t something she dwelled on. She seems satisfied with my responses so far. She was more focused on the fact that we both have eggs in our tummies.

She knows babies come out of your vagina or out of your tummy with the doctors help for a c-section.

Honestly, I’d just keep it easy and say mummies have eggs and daddies have sperm and you need both to make a baby and see where the conversation goes.

My son was four and asked me at 6am as I was trying to iron something for work. He asked if we could have another baby, and “how do you even GET a baby, anyway?” I got a little flustered, said we couldn’t have another baby because four people in our family was enough and babies were expensive, and now he thinks you can buy babies at a store. Whoops.

We own this weird and hilarious book as well. My husband hates reading it to our kid. I quite enjoy the book. If you google image it you can see pages from the book. There is only one weird page where it shows the parents doing it on a space hopper and stuff. All cartoon style, diagrams drawn by the kids of “some ways how mummies and daddies fit together”

It’s informative and cutesy though (we changed some words, or I do anyway so I’m actually saying vagina vs “hole” I think they say in the book, and it opens with the parents telling their kids how babies are made “girls with sugar and spice and all things nice and sometimes delivered to the front door” and the kids tell their parents “we don’t think you really know how babies are made” and explains the process to them.

@erinbaderin: I'm fairly certain my 3 year old thinks babies come from CPS via social workers, though she hasn't asked yet. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

@LAZB: sounds right to me

I am a health teacher (5th grade), and have seen how confused kids can be by that age, so I endeavor to answer LO's questions as honestly as I can without overloading her. She's 3, and so far she is not curious about how babies get inside women, but she does know that she grew inside Mama's abdomen (I specifically avoid "tummy"), that Mama had to push her out through my vagina, and that having a baby is very hard work. (I had to clarify this last point after she was asking about when my cousin's baby would "pop out.")

I recently heard a conversation on a parenting podcast about this, and one of the panelists highlighted that most kids who are asking questions about this are asking about reproduction, not sex. This supports the approach of highlighting sperm and egg, without introducing how the union occurs until they are asking about it more specifically.

@lady baltimore: interesting about the podcast. That lines up with what I have been questioned about by most small children under 5.

So far DS has only asked how the baby gets out when DW was pregnant with DS2. He asked if it came out of her bellybutton ha which she said no and told him the doctor would help him out of her vagina. Which just led to a most girls have vaginas and most boys have a penis conversation. But now reading this, I think I need to be more prepared! Especially considering we are also a 2 mom family as @wrkbrk said and I want our answer to reflect how our and other families are created. When we were going through our fertility treatments it was suggested to make a personalized book for the child about their particular story. It’s on my to do list but that other book seems quite good in the meantime.

As for @Petitduck question: I would rather I get a chance to talk to my sons first because I would fear the heteronormative answer that they potentially would give, but I don’t think I would be upset. I think the info coming from a trusted adult is my preference overall vs some kid on the school yard freaking everyone out or spreading misinformation. I don’t feel I need to totally censor out info at this age if my kid asks...we plan to answer things matter of fact and use correct body terms, etc. Even from a young age and give the basic info and expand on that if the child pushes for more.

@Petitduck: Like @muffinsmuffins: I'd fear the heteronormative explanation that would leave my child feeling left out (if we'd had a bio child via donor insemination) or confused (when mommy and daddy love each other, as that doesn't explain things for her either) but a simple scientific explanation of sperm and eggs wouldn't bother me at all.

Side note, O is kind of fascinated by all things poop related lately, and bathroom humor is a daily thing. She also has said that women "poop babies out of their butts."

@Petitduck: If my child were asking direct questions about reproduction or intercourse, I wouldn't mind a teacher providing her with basic factual information and encouraging her to come to me and her father with further questions.

However, in my state, as a trained health educator, I am not allowed to tell my students about reproduction as it is not part of the fifth grade curriculum. Of course I have had more knowledgeable students ask questions about it, but I have to redirect them to talk privately with a trusted adult. I don't know what the expectation is if these questions come up outside of health class/with a teacher who has not been trained.

@Autumnmama79: I like that there is a specialized person who comes in and the parent chat beforehand. Our sex-ed curriculum is so so and was recently revamped to include specifics for each grade level and introduce some topics and vocabulary at an early age, but now it’s a bit up in the air because of a new politician. I’m not in the U.S.

@lady baltimore: @Mrs. Turtle: @muffinsmuffins: I’m curious to see how it will be handled at school by teachers and other kids. I know my sister had to start talking to her kids about it because some kids at school were talking about stuff in a way she didn’t like. I think that’s my worry, not so much an adult responding, but a kid providing information in a way that I’m not comfortable with / that’s inappropriate for my kid. Although, faced with a choice, I’d rather them get as much information as possible and hope they’d share it with me so we could discuss.

@Autumnmama79: I’m jealous your province has its crap together!

Just curious how couples who did IVF handle this question? We joke that we had very little to do with making the current bun I'm baking, but I hadn't put much thought into explaining it to our little in the future.

@Petitduck: Oooh, let me guess - Ontario? (Eye roll, heavy sigh, muttered curses about Doug Ford) Me too. I’ve never called my MP so much in my life as I have in the past year.

@foodiebee: I’m going to not raise this for a while. I figure I’ll deal with the immediate “how are babies made” first, and then once they’re older I can deal with the “how were you specifically made”.

@erinbaderin: @Petitduck: hello fellow Ontarians! I also guessed you were talking about our lovely buck a beer hero also huuuuge fan of our current 1998 sex Ed curriculum which doesn’t acknowledge that our 2 mom family exists! I’m glad my kids are young and hopefully it will be properly revamped before long. What a disaster for our province though...even more reason why I’m preparing to have these conversations in case we end up further back in time.