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Houston Babies
Toddlers & Adult Nudity
So we're preparing Mar for baby sister's upcoming arrival and one of the things we've started doing is that when she feeds my belly milk and cheerios (fun to clean out of your belly button, btw), we tell her thank you for sharing, but baby sister get's milk from mama's boobies.
She knows what my boobs are, knows they're for milk and doesn't seem to phase her. When I'm naked, she's intrigued by them, but probably just because they're too big to ignore.
We've started showering
together more (for a while, she's just been getting baths by herself)
and today, she was interested in my lady bits.
Would you use this opportunity to point out that she has little lady parts too? Would you just tell her yes, those are mama's parts and leave it at that? Would you wait until she could verbalize more questions before having a conversation about it with her? At this age, how would you handle opposite gender nudity (like, seeing her dad.)
Basically, I'm just wondering if I shouldn't make a big deal out of it and let her come to me with questions as she gets older, or should I turn this into a teaching opportunity and making a point of pointing out to her male/female differences?
I'm especially interested in the answers from moms of all girls as we don't yet have a baby boy in the house and so can't use brother as a teaching tool, LOL. Did you make let them see DH naked so they would know boys look different than girls or do you figure that will just come with time?
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Re: Toddlers & Adult Nudity
Emmy calls them "ti" (I'm probably not even spelling right) which is the baby slang in vietnamese for nips. Like her paci is called a 'ti". And so she's fully aware of my ti, and she out of the blue on her own knows that she has 2 ti's too. So I think it's an observation thing and you really don't need to say anything, if you don't want. They'll learn on their own eventually (just like how they have a nose or two eyes just like mommy).
It's when she goes on and on how she has two little ti's and mommy has two big ti's and daddy has 2 little ti's like her...it gets kind of embarrassing and so far she hasn't said it in public.
At G and M's age I would just let them look, not point things out. When he grabs himself I tell him what it is called. I would do the same with M.
As for her seeing your DH I would just let her see. At this point they are curious.
E has always seen both of us naked, so it doesn't phase her. We call them "privates" and she realizes that boy privates and girl privates are different.
The few times she has tried to touch me or poke at me I've told her no, those are mama's privates and not for touching. She just accepted it.
As for BFing... she knows S eats mama's milk and that it comes from mama's nipples. She'll tell you that hers are too small to feed the baby... and so are daddy's.
I've never sought out times to teach her about our bodies, I just answer any questions she seems to have.
Luca doesn't seem interested in any of our parts. We don't hide ourselves from him. He just hasn't taken an interest. When he grabs himself during a diaper change I'll say something like "are you touching your penis?" Just like I would say about his ears, nose, foot or any other body part. He hasn't taken any notice that he and Lila are different. Maybe it's just a boy thing.
Funny that you posted this because we just had a big talk with Abbie about it last night.
She has always been around me and seen me naked and it doesn't phase her. She asks questions and I answer them, but she didn't really start getting super curious until lately (she'll be 6 in September). So if we shower together or she sees me changing she asks why are your boobies so much bigger than mine? Is that where the baby will drink? On and on. I answer her honestly and she knows that it is not a converstation she should have with friends or anyone else.
She saw DH in the shower on accident yesterday and she had never really seen him naked before. We didn't live together until we got married last June so there never was the "opportunity" when she was too little to know any better. He went and talked with her after his shower asking her if she had any questions and told her the same thing that I do that it is his private area and she shouldn't talk about it with anyone but him or Mommy. Then I told her boys bodies and girls bodies are different and she said "yeah Daddy's private area is longer than ours." I told her that was called his penis (she knows the correct name for all her parts) and that if she sees it sometimes when he changing, etc. that it was ok and it will be ok for her to see her little brother's but it's not ok to see other people's. Then we went on and talked about how no one should ever try to show her theirs or ask her to touch theirs, etc. Also that if she wants to talk or ask questions to come to us, but those conversations should only happen with us or a doctor.
Like I said though, she is almost 6. If she had been 2 we would have just not made a big deal about it and I wouldn't use his body as a teaching tool. I would get a book about how boy and girls bodies are different if you want to go that route.
Collin Thayne 10.11.2010
We do not make a big deal about it but we do answer questions if they come up.
Kaitlyn has regularly seen her daddy naked as well as me... we don't make a big deal about it. She knows their bodies are different from ours and if she asks we refer to them as 'privates' but we also will tell her their correct names. (I just don't want her shouting out vagina somewhere, so we use 'privates' when referring to the area in general. lol)
Now at Micaela's age... we use the specific names so she understands... However she also has a book that we read together when she was older and started asking questions. We started with one that was all about her body and then when she asked about boy bodies we just explained as best we could.