Explaining periods to young children

[thatgirliknew]

I have a 3 year old daughter who loves to randomly walk in the bathroom unannounced. 

I was on my period and she said "Oh no you have a boo-boo." 

Simple age appropriate way to explain so she doesn't freak out?

[mamazee]

There is a great book called It's Not The Stork which might be just what you need. It's written for ages 4 and up, but 3 is close to that. It explains everything in an empowering and positive way that kids understand. It is part of a series that is liberal minded about things like sexuality, including same-sex couples, so that might either be a selling point or scare you off depending on your mindset. But we've had the whole series here and I just keep the books in my older daughter's room so she can read up on stuff she has questions about as she gets curious. (The other ones, for higher age groups,are It's So Amazing, and It's Perfectly Normal.)

[purplerose]

I told my kids whenever they'd ask that i had ovulated, and the blood was cleaning out my uterus. It worked and made other subjects easy to just add to that explanation! I always answered

[meemee]

dd's favourite place to chat has always been the bathroom so she has grown up with seeing bleeding. 

i treated it as a science question and answered it accordingly. made it all about facts. got out our medical dictionary and explained why i bled. result. when her dc teacher announced she was pregnant dd confidently asked her how it feels to no longer bleed and have to deal with long clean up. 

[Skippy918]

I wondered about this too. My son asked me what the tampons were for and he caught me off guard so I wasn't sure how to respond. He was looking in my sink cabinet. Suggestions?

[KristyDi]

I just went with an age appropriate version of the truth. DD has always followed me to the bathroom so she's seen my putting in and taking out my diva cup pretty often. I tell her that it's normal for women that aren't pregnant to bleed every month. That lets them know they're not pregnant and gets their body ready to possibly get pregnant. The main thing she seemed to be concerned with was that I wasn't hurt. She wasn't too interested i the details.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I told DD that every month, a woman's body makes a nest in case there is a baby. If there is no baby, the nest comes out in order to get ready for the next month. It doesn't hurt and the blood is part of the nest.

[crunchy_mommy]

Originally Posted by BellinghamCrunchie 

I told DD that every month, a woman's body makes a nest in case there is a baby. If there is no baby, the nest comes out in order to get ready for the next month. It doesn't hurt and the blood is part of the nest.

I say basically the same thing to DS, except I say "cushiony uterine lining" or something instead of "nest" because he's all technical.

[phathui5]

I think that at three years old, saying "It's not a boo-boo, it's called mommy's period" would be enough.

[lmk1]

Originally Posted by Skippy918 

I wondered about this too. My son asked me what the tampons were for and he caught me off guard so I wasn't sure how to respond. He was looking in my sink cabinet. Suggestions?

Ha, my boys destroyed some of my tampons....I just tell them that it's like a diaper for mommy because once a month I get blood that my body makes and then it gets rid of because it doesn't need it.  

[WindyCityMom]

My 5 year old isn't too interested, but has asked and though I didn't give her the rundown about endometrial lining, I did explain that women's bodies prepare themselves to have babies and if a baby is not there the body gets rid of the extra stuff it would have needed for the baby.  She was fine with that answer.

[loveandgarbage]

I've been pretty casual and lazy about the explanation. I just said that once a month a woman bleeds and that's just how it is. They didn't ask anything further!

[gcgirl]

I just tell them that it's like a diaper for mommy because once a month I get blood that my body makes and then it gets rid of because it doesn't need it.  

Yes! Both my kids walked in on me and they were worried about the blood on my maxi - I told them women bleed once a month if they're not having a baby and DS2 asked me if that's why I was wearing mommy diapers!

So far that explanation has been enough for them.