I Bleed.

Periods are a fact of life. Not fun or pretty, but also not dirty or embarrassing. As the mother of a daughter I have always tried to be as open as possible about menstruation, in an age appropriate fashion.

I did tell a lie once. When she was about 6 she asked if it would hurt. I said no. But sometimes, and for some of us it does. But I didn't think she needed to start worrying about it at that age.

I do remember when I was a pre-teen, despite my Mum also being pretty open, I felt awkward asking questions. For some reason we often feel a little embarrassed discussing periods.

I remember having a Saturday job at Sainsburys back in the day of price tickets. The teenage boys I worked with were terrified of unopened packets of sanitary products, and would throw them at each other while screaming like banshees when they were supposed to be pricing them.

I think it is the attitude of boys sometimes that makes girls feel like it is a taboo subject. I now have two much younger boys and I hope I will manage to bring them up to treat periods in the same casual manner as we do other bodily functions - a private matter- but not a shameful one!

I was pleased to see that the lovely Lil-Lets people have launched a range aimed at pre-teen/teen girls. They have a starter pack available from Boots for £3.99 which includes a selection of prettily wrapped towels and tampons, a cute purse to keep your sanitary products in, and a great information leaflet to help answer some of the common questions posed by girls about to start their periods.

They also have two websites- one for parents to help guide them on what info to cover when having the chat, and one for the girls, full of facts, advice and tips. Now I do not think a website alone should be the only source of information for your daughter, but I do think its a great starting point for conversation, as well as being somewhere they can refer to if they have a query when you are not around or that they feel awkward about asking.

The Lil-Let's people were kind enough to send us a sample pack, my daughter is 16 and older than the age directly aimed at- but she liked the discreet packaging and agreed that the information covered the kind of questions she had a few years ago. I think the pack is a great idea to have on stand-by for girls heading for starting menstruating, it's always a good idea to be prepared, I remember the worst thing about my first period was having to ask my Mum for 'something' while my Dad was in the room- I was so embarrassed- silly really!

Love Miss Cisco

Disclaimer- Lil-Let's did send a free teen starter pack as well as a couple of treats, but all views are genuine and our own.