My girls ask a lot of questions about babies. How does a baby get in a mommy's tummy? How does a baby come out?
Whew!
I want to be honest with my kids about the way the world works, but I don't want to give them more information than they can handle at their age. It's a difficult balance.
I was really happy when we found the used book, How You Were Born by Joanna Cole, at the library bookstore. The pictures are tasteful and engaging and the vocabulary is authentic. We've read it over and over.
This book is a great introduction to the topics of conception and birth without giving it all away.
I'd love to hear your ideas about how you've handled the subject of the birds and the bees with your kids.
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17 comments:
I was just asked yesterday by one of my 3 1/2 year olds - "How did I get into your tummy?" I was at a loss of words. Thanks for the tip on the book
I agree. Joanna Cole books are great. I love the Big Sister and Big Girl Potty books too.
As a former teacher and mother of a 1 year old girl, I'd just like to say that I love reading your blog. Not only do you have the BEST ideas, but you solve a lot of problems with BOOKS! How cool is that? Inspiring, really. Your sweet girls are lucky to have you as their momma! We are FAR from that stage but thanks for the book idea! :)
I think i'll have to check out that book and keep it on hand for the day the 2 youngest ask that question.
we LOVE books around here, and love your suggestions on them.
(the easter bunny brought, 'I Love you stinky face' and the kids love it! so does mommy!)
We have kept things very basic. Mommy has an egg, Daddy has a seed and he gives it to mommy. That turns into a baby. The baby grows inside mommys stomach and comes out the birthing canal. I tell them the birthing canal is a special place that gets big enough to push a baby out. I explain when I'm not having babies that birthing canal shrinks back down to teeny tiny. When they ask HOW does daddy give the seed to mommy I say "You do not need to know that yet". They trust me and trust my judgment. They are satisfied with my answers.
My boys are 11,6,5,4.
P~
We've always tried to answer our kids' questions in the most direct way possible, and when our six year old was a bit younger she was content with simple answers. Now, however, she's really looking for specifics and I don't want to hold back or make it seem like something she shouldn't know, etc (like my parents did, then it freaked me out!). We use the standard words (pe*is, va*ina, etc) and found an AMAZING book that goes along with our direct way of talking to them. It's called "It's NOT the Stork" ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0763633313?ie=UTF8&tag=librarcollec-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0763633313 ) and is very Kindergartener-appropriate (it says 4+, I would go 6+...the next book provides a lot more info and is 7+, but I'll definitely hold onto it for a few more years). The drawings are cute, but thoroughly labeled (pe*is, tes*icles, ovaries, labia, etc - the *s are to keep the search engines from mis-indexing you :). It dealt with things that I'm not altogether comfortable articulating myself and demystified things (like the 'baby in the stomach' fear) and we've had some great discussions.
Otherwise, I love Joanna Cole's other books (the big sibling and potty books are great!), and I would definitely start there!
xo, amanda @ www.kiddio.org
Read *The wonderful Way Babies Are Made* by Larry Christenson. If it is still the same, there are pages for younger kids and then you can choose a different section as they get older. FABULOUS!!
Great thoughts and recommendations. Thanks so much. I'm headed over to Amazon to add these titles to my wish list.
My sons are 6 and 4 and I am hugely pregnant with their baby sister. I keep waiting for the questions, but they really have surprised me by not having as many as I expected. So far they are content with "God put the baby there," and while they have many exciting ideas of how the baby is going to come out (through my nose, maybe), so far it hasn't really come up. I almost feel like I need to just TELL them even though they're not asking for information. But I don't want to overload their poor little boy brains. LOL.
I'm all about honesty but I'm a lot more comfortable when they're leading the conversation, so I know exactly how much they are wanting to handle at the moment.
What a great idea! My twins are 4.5 years old and one of them is way more curious with questions than the other one. But they both listen intently to my explanations and they remember EXACTLY what I say.
We've had many "how does the baby get into your tummy?" discussions in the last couple weeks. Right now my answer is "Firs, a mom and a dad get together and talk about having a baby. Then the baby starts out very very tiny and grows in the tummy." There are certainly so many variations to conception and birth and parenthood, but I might just wait until Kindergarten to get into those.
Thanks for the tip on the book!
A good book is The Story of Me, it is the first book in God's Design for Sex series. You can find it at Amazon.
my kids aren't old enough yet, but my mom was always sure to only answer my questions and not give more information than i was really looking for. that seemed to work well with me, so i'll probably try to do the same.
hope you ladies will join me for a MOther's Day card giveaway at www.burningbushes.org
It hasn't come up for me yet--but I'll be well armed now when it does!
A friend of mine brought these to our homeschool group's curriculum night a couple of weeks ago. (We each took our favorite stuff to show) They look GREAT! I plan to order them! It is a whole series and starts with a bit of info for little ones and goes through the teen years, I believe.
http://www.navpress.com/series/SR1022/Gods-Design-for-Sex
My mother-in-law is a gyn. nurse, so my husband was raised with all the information being anatomically correct at a VERY early age. We answered our girls' questions very directly and honestly with real names. BUT, that worked for us and might not work for others.
I did have one suggestion to add for when your girls (and all your faithful readers' girls) are old enough for puberty. I bought a book called, "The Care and Keeping of You". It's in the American Girl series. Any local Borders or Barnes and Noble (or Amazon, of course) will have it. It's an EXCELLENT kid-friendly source of information. Not scary, but real answers to real questions about what happens to a girl's body during puberty. Cartoon drawings are used instead of photographs so it's lower down on the "gross" factor for the girl! My daughters (now 9 and 10, and yes, both in puberty-my 10 year old has had her period for 2 years-YIKES!) pored over it and we had some great, honest discussions about it.
Naturally, everyone should do what makes them comfortable, but this book is an excellent guide, using kid-speak to what happens as you grow.
Now I am stepping down of my soapbox and leaving my 2 cents behind!
Cindy
I agree about the "Care and Keeping of You" book! It was great for both my daughter and even my son. It totally demystified what was happening to her body. We also went out and got a similar book but the boy version for them both. I can't remember the title off-hand. They want to be able to digest this stuff on their own terms!
Thanks for this great website! I'm looking forward to more "stories"!
Thanks to you and all your readers for the book suggestions. We haven't gotten there yet but I started thinking about it when my, then, 2yo looked at her brother during a diaper change and said "His tush looks like a purple ball!" I've told them the correct names, but we still go with "front tush" and "back tush" for everyday reference.
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