I’ll never forget the moment my daughter asked me where babies came from.
It was about 8.30pm and she was tucked up in bed ready to go to sleep. In classic inquisitive four-year-old style (and a blatant last-ditch attempt to delay bedtime), she asked: “Mummy, where do babies come from?”
“That’s a very good question!” I replied. And so began my (admittedly pretty short and sweet) explanation about an egg and a sperm meeting, joining, and then creating a baby.
She seemed pretty happy with the answer, no follow-up questions were asked, and she was fast asleep five minutes later. Phew.
It’ll probably come as no surprise that “where do babies come from?” has been crowned the trickiest question kids ask (other contenders included “why is the moon following us?” and “what happens when we die?”).
According to the survey of 1,000 UK parents by Mr Men Little Miss, five-year-olds were found to be the most curious of all, with 30% of parents reporting their little ones asked more questions at this age than at any other point in their early childhood.
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Why the question feels tricky for parents
“As adults, we know that many babies come from sex so when our young child asks us this question, we automatically think that we have to explain sex,” Hema told me.
“But that’s just simply not true! (Not all babies are products of having sex).”
From a child’s perspective, they are noticing new things every day and “one day they realise that there’s a new baby and so they ask the question, ‘Where do babies come from?’ out of genuine curiosity”, she said.
“They truly have no idea where babies come from, so they ask the question just like they would for any other topic that they’re curious about.”
Her advice is that parents should be prepared to answer this question from when kids are about four years old.
“This way, you’re expecting it and can easily praise them for asking the question. This makes young kids feel really good about having asked and really happy that they came to you (their parent) to ask because you’re praising them,” she added.
How to respond to: ‘Where do babies come from?’
The good news is you definitely do not need to be talking about sex – and you can explain it in as little as 30 seconds.
“Then you can lead the talk from here. You can talk about how the egg cell is nothing like a chicken egg, or how the cells will grow in the uterus for nine months, or ask them if they want to see pictures of when they were a newborn.
“These are all fascinating bits of information that kids don’t know how to ask about but are eagerly interested to learn.”
