DS asked how the baby will get out

[dentmom]

I'm leaning towards telling him the truth w/o the details. He's 5.5 and I will most likely be having another vaginal birth. My only real worry is him telling friends at school whose parents may not want them to know. thoughts?

[Limabean1975]

Not only did I tell my then 3.5 year old, but he actually watched the birth. And we read "It's not the Stork" (book) alot.
He is in kindergarten now. He hears some things at school I'm unsure of, but I know that by sending him to school, I am making the choice to expose him to things beyond my full control. Other parents have to realize the same.

[bethanyclaire]

As soon as my DS was old enough to ask he got all the details... how the baby got in and how it will come out. He is that kind of kid though, and if he asks it is because he really wants to know. Vague answers get me nowhere with him.

He was a little over 5.5 when he asked for the full-on detailed explanation (we had talked about it many times before just not in a totally graphic way). I told DS and DD I was pregnant and he wanted to know all about it. He has watched birth videos (tons of them now, he is fascinated by them) and wants to be with me when this baby is born.

As far as the kids at school... I simply explained that some parents explain things to their children in different ways and that it wasn't fair for him to tell the kids at school and take that opportunity away from their parents. I explained that those kind of talks are special, private and reserved for families. That worked just fine for him, though I don't know if that would work for all kids.

As a disclaimer though, I am the kind of parent who is totally honest and up front about all natural human experiences and I understand that not everyone feels the same way. I'd go with your gut mama and do what feels comfortable for you.

[dentmom]

Originally Posted by bethanyclaire

As soon as my DS was old enough to ask he got all the details... how the baby got in and how it will come out. He is that kind of kid though, and if he asks it is because he really wants to know. Vague answers get me nowhere with him.

He was a little over 5.5 when he asked for the full-on detailed explanation (we had talked about it many times before just not in a totally graphic way). I told DS and DD I was pregnant and he wanted to know all about it. He has watched birth videos (tons of them now, he is fascinated by them) and wants to be with me when this baby is born.

As far as the kids at school... I simply explained that some parents explain things to their children in different ways and that it wasn't fair for him to tell the kids at school and take that opportunity away from their parents. I explained that those kind of talks are special, private and reserved for families. That worked just fine for him, though I don't know if that would work for all kids.

As a disclaimer though, I am the kind of parent who is totally honest and up front about all natural human experiences and I understand that not everyone feels the same way. I'd go with your gut mama and do what feels comfortable for you.

That is a great thing to say, thank you!

I'm going to tell him the truth. It doesn't feel right to tell him they will cut open my stomach or that he will come through the belly button! Especially when he'll find out the truth eventually anyway.

[Kuba'sMama]

Hi;
I recently went through the same thing. My son is older, 6.5. You'd think he's ready, right? Well, I don't know. He's of the "ewww, gross" variety of child. EVERYTHING grosses him out. When his sister was in diapers, he would gag at the MENTION of a poop, let alone the smell. He gets physically ill (nauseous, pale, shaky) when someone gets a cut, scrape, etc.
But I'm an honest type, natural mama. I'm not going to lie to my very mature child, and have him miss out on the miracle of bringing a child into this world? No way!
So when he asked me "how is this baby going to go out of your belly?" I calmly replied "through a special hole in my vagina", and braced myself for shock. He looked at me, equally calm and gave me an instant, unemotional "eww". No more mentions about our impending miracle. Oh well.

[MamaMonica]

Moved to Birth and Beyond.

[eclipse]

I don't see any reason to tell him anything but the truth, or to avoid telling him. My kids have known forever, and I never did the "this is private" talk either, because I feel like it's just biology.

[guestmama9966]

LOL My 4 year old just asked me this and I wasn't sure how to say it so I just said "Well he will come out down here by my buns." HAHAHA! Not the best answer. Then TLC had births being shown so I told him to come watch. Of course it blurs it out a bit but he got the basic picture. Then a couple days later he told me "Mom I want to come to the hospital and watch that baby come out of your buns." So funny. I am not going that far though. I leave my others with gramma.

[kltroy]

Telling your kid how the baby gets OUT is easy. It's explaining how it gets IN that is a little more complicated! My mom is a CNM so we knew the whole story as long as I can remember. But I vividly remember my sister at age 5 explaining to a friend's mom in great detail about sperm and eggs and placentas, but it never dawned on my sister to wonder *how* the sperm got there!

[ExuberantDaffodil]

I told my 5 year old "The baby will come out from between my legs." He very quietly thought about that for a moment before asking, "The baby comes out your BUTT?!"

I had a fun time explaining that it was NOT my butt!

I also watched birthing videos with him (he was fascinated by BoBB!) and the night before I went into labor we sat down together and drew pictures of me pushing out the baby. By that point, the "how" wasn't really a big deal to him. It was more matter of fact.

[dentmom]

Oh, out of the mouths of babes!

[rachel65655]

I have always told my young children that "God made a special place for the babies to come out". This is my answer for a lot of those unexplainable questions that they ask like "Why is the sky blue?"...answer...."Because God made it that way." I usually don't get any follow-up questions.

[Bea]

Depending on the age of the child it doesn't matter what you tell them.

My friends daughter who saw her lil brother born at home, still came home from sunday school a few weeks later with the unshakable truth of how babies come out of mommy's belly button.

[Litcrit]

Originally Posted by dentmom

I'm leaning towards telling him the truth w/o the details. He's 5.5 and I will most likely be having another vaginal birth. My only real worry is him telling friends at school whose parents may not want them to know. thoughts?

I told my almost 3-year-old daughter that the baby will come out of my vagina and that I'll have to push it out. She also saw some nice birth videos. I see no reason not to tell them the truth. I agree it's simple biology. And it's isn't a baby more aesthetically pleasing than urine and feces and snot, all of which they already know come out of our various orifices?

I've never heard of people saying to kids that a baby comes out of the belly button or gets cut out of mom. The former is silly and scary, and the latter is reserved for matters of life and death and is not fun at all. The truth is much less scary.

As for what other kids in school know, I personally wouldn't care about that. I can't keep my kid uninformed about the basics of life just because other parents choose to. What if they taught their kids the Earth was flat? Or that it was created in 6 literal 24-hour days? Or that dinosaurs never existed? Should I cater to that too?

I heard about how babies are made from a friend at school. Then I brought it up to my parents, who corrected the inaccuracies and filled in the gaps and I was set. I would have probably waited a bit longer to come up with the question myself, but what's wrong with curiosity being piqued sooner about any fact of life? Isn't that one of the functions of school?

[Attila the Honey]

When my dd was about 4 she asked and I told her that the baby comes out through an opening all women and girls have called the vagina. I also told her it's usually a lot of hard work, and sometimes the vagina is called "the birth canal".

I never worried about her telling friends because, well, it's the truth! And it's not like it's greatly detailed, either.

She recently shocked me by asking, "How can Tante have a baby when she's not married? to have a baby you have to be married and then the angels make you have a baby!" I found that waay more shocking and offensive than the truth. lol At the time I only told her that no, you don't have to be married at all and it's something men and women can do without angelic involvement. I was expecting her to ask for details but she left it at that.

[mamatogirls]

My 4 year old just asked me the other day where do babies come out of and I replied out of the vagina. Her response was "Oh(giggle)" She didn't ask out the baby got in so that was an easy response.

[AutumnW]

my son is 2.5 and I've shown him birth videos on youtube which he loves and asks for more and more. I haven't tried to explain vaginas to him yet it is hard enough for him to understand that mama is the only one in the house that doesn't have a penis, I'm not going to show him what I actually have, lol.

Anyway, I showed him the videos of mostly homebirths and he came to the conclusion that the hole the baby is coming out of is the butt, I try to show him that it is not and that in the videos you can usually see the mamas butt.

Since most of the videos of homebirths are also waterbirths he now tells me every time he takes a bath that the baby in his tummy will come out in the water from his butt and be "eww". We then talk about how the baby will be gross for just a minute after it is born and then we will wipe it off and it won't be gross anymore.

He tells our family members about how mama has a baby in her belly and he has two in his and how the babies will come out of our butts and be eww. He will get more details as he gets older

Fwiw we plan on homeschooling him so the only time we come up against him dropping some knowledge on kids who are kept in the dark is around one set of cousins who are raised very differently than him. This doesn't really pertain to birth but more with evolution and how santa doesn't bring us gifts because he is just a character based on a saint. If he says something around these cousins that their mama doesn't like she just explains to them what they are to believe and makes some excuse as to why ds doesn't believe that.

[Sudonk]

I teach Hypnobabies, so my kids have seen all the birth posters and videos and such I keep around the house. When they asked how the new baby would get here, I just told them. I didn't see any need to sugar-coat it, or use different words. They now know more about birth than the average 25-year-old, and they are very comfortable with it.

[zinemama]

Originally Posted by eclipse

I don't see any reason to tell him anything but the truth, or to avoid telling him. My kids have known forever, and I never did the "this is private" talk either, because I feel like it's just biology.

Same here. My kids have known about this since they were 2 or 3. It never even occurred to me not to tell them - or to ask them to keep it a secret.

[Veritaserum]

My girls have known from an early age that there is a hole for pee, a hole for babies, and a hole for poop. I explained labor as a process of opening up the bottom of the uterus (where the baby grows) so that I could then push the baby out through the baby hole. The uterus squeezes every few minutes. That squeezing is what opens the cervix (the opening of the uterus).

A balloon makes a good stand-in for a uterus. You can even show dilation and effacement if you put a ping pong ball inside a balloon. Blow up the ballloon and position the ball over the opening to trap the air. The ball represents the baby's head. When you squeeze the balloon the ball gets lower as the "cervix" opens up. Watch out, though, because the ball can go flying.