What do you tell your child when they ask "the question?"

[Fleur]

I don't ever remember having 'the talk' when I was a kid, and I kind of think that's how it should be, you know? With my kids I just answered all their questions honestly as they came up. Some of them were quite hairy. DD asked about oral sex when she was 5 a friend at school had told her.

Hairy moments aside, these days our older kids are pretty open about talking about this stuff with us.

The best advice we were given was to answer honestly, but only the immediate question. Just the answer to that & don't need to volunteer any more. They'll go away & think about it (or forget it) and come back if they need to.

After I had DS2 I went into DS1's pre-school class with him for 'show& tell'. The teacher decided to do a Q & A and one kid in particular was most insistent.

"where did the baby come from?'
'out of my tummy'
'how did it get in there?'
'it grew from an egg'
'where did the egg come from?'
'it grew there like the hair grows on your head, or your fingernails grow'
'how did it get out?'
and on, and on

[MummaSue]

Hehe, we always wonder about this one - when DD asks, as she was IVF.

So there will be "this is how babies are made" BUT "this is how YOU were made"

[Twin Sister]

I went to a talk at the library on "how to talk to your kids about sex" (by author Meg Hickling) and she recommends telling them everything as soon as they ask, as it is a lot less awkward and they just grow up knowing that that is normal and natural. I bought her book "Boys, Girls and Body Science" and its very detailed. I love it

DS is almost 3 and we have told him everything. When I was pregnant with DD we read books to him which explained everything from how babies are conceived, how the baby forms/grows, and how the baby comes out. We didn't skip over anything either, I read him every detail, even the parts about sex. He LOVED those books.