How to talk about baby loss with your children

Losing a baby at any stage of pregnancy is a horribly traumatic experience. Losing a baby during pregnancy when you are fortunate enough to have living children back at home can be a blessing and a curse. Having been through this myself twice, I often felt like I couldn’t really complain about my loss of Sophie and Charlie as much as a mother who hadn’t been able to bring any of her children home alive, but over time I have been able to realise that I shouldn’t be ashamed of my grief and that being incredibly lucky to have my two living children doesn’t mean that losing Sophie and Charlie hurts any less.

I remember when I first fell pregnant with Sophie, we were so unbelievably excited! I have a video at home, which gave us so much joy at the time, but now brings so much pain. Our two very small children, Alexa was just over a year old and Oscar was 3, Oscar proudly holds up Sophie’s scan photo and tells the world that mummy has a baby in her tummy. We genuinely had no idea that something could or would go wrong. We even took Oscar and Alexa along to the 20 week scan with us, where we were told that our babies heart hadn’t grown properly. Our children were too young to really understand what happened with Sophie, so they accepted very easily that the baby had died.

When we fell pregnant 6 months later, things seemed so much different. They both noticed my growing tummy and asked questions about the baby. We didn’t take them along to our 20 week scan this time, which was fortunate as we were told again that our son also had heart problems, although this time they thought that he could go on to live a normal life through some surgery after birth.

All the way through our pregnancy we told them that Charlie wasn’t very well and that his heart wasn’t quite growing how it should. However much we all spoke about it though, none of us were truly prepared for how unwell he became and how he then passed away on my chest, just 6 hours after being born at 35 weeks. Dealing with our own loss was horrific, but I clearly remember thinking ‘How are we going to tell Oscar and Alexa that their brother has died?’. I knew that I wanted to be the one to do it, but how do you explain something to a child when you don’t understand it yourself?

Oscar and Alexa had been staying with my parents whilst we were in hospital and the plan was for me and Al to move in with them whilst I recovered from my C-Section surgery and we came to terms with what had happened. I clearly remember walking into the kitchen and seeing our two beautiful children after the horrible events of the previous week. These two little people gave me so much strength and I honestly don’t think I could have got through any of this without them.

I sat myself down with them and gave them a huge hug as I told them that their brother had died and that he wasn’t coming home. Oscar, who was 4 at the time immediately burst into tears, I don’t know why but this reaction really shocked me. I hadn’t expected him to be sad, they seemed too young to be able to understand enough to feel sadness. Seeing him so sad broke my heart all over again, when I hadn’t thought there was any of it left to break. Alexa was still quite young at the time so she didn’t understand, but I will never be able to unsee her confused little face when we would be doing normal day to day things and I would suddenly break down into uncontrollable crying. I decided early on that it was a good thing for the children to see us sad. A very sad thing had happened, we couldn’t hide it from them and I wanted them to know that being sad was ok. Alexa would always come and give me a huge hug when I cried and both of them would often build us something out of duplo to cheer us up.

The whole experience was such a rollercoaster ride for so many reasons. Some of the guilt I felt was so unexpected, I felt so guilty that they had to experience so much sadness at such young ages. They talked about death so openly, which was what we wanted but still broke our hearts as death had become so normal to them. I remember Oscar saying to me so matter of factly ‘why do we keep trying to grow babies and they keep dying?’

We did a lot of research into what we should and shouldn’t say to our children about death, the Sands Charity had some really great resources for us. I wanted to share some of the best bits of advice that we got, for anyone else who is going to go through a similar situation. For us these related to them losing a sibling, but I think they are helpful in discussing any kind of death with them.

Tips for how to talk about grief with your children

1. Be honest, no matter how brutal it seems  - We read a lot about how important it was to be honest about what had happened. Trying to ‘fluff up’ what happened can actually just make it much more confusing for children.
2. Use the right language – One of the best things I read was about how we shouldn’t tell them that Charlie was poorly, then he died. This is because terms like ‘poorly’ are terms that we use with our children for if they are unwell. Children will quickly link that being poorly means that you die, which can cause a lot of anxiety for them moving forward. We told them that Charlie’s heart had not grown properly and that it couldn’t make his body work properly.
3. Keep it brief – It’s easy to fall into the trap of over explaining things, which can really confuse children. Keep your explanations brief, with just the need to know facts.
4. Answer their questions honestly – We are nearly 2 years on from Charlie passing away and we still get random questions out of the blue. They come at the strangest times, like when you are on your way out of the door to go to school or are right in the middle of the ironing. Most of our questions normally come in the car. We always try to answer them honestly and briefly, making sure we keep the conversation open so they feel like they can ask more if they want to or they can switch to another subject.
5. Be prepared for bold statements – Kids can be brutal and they really do say what they think. My daughter would come up to me quite frequently and just say ‘There was a baby in your tummy and then he died!’ I would calmly reply ‘yes that’s right’ and she would just wander off and carry on playing, whilst I stood there in shock!
6. Keep their memories alive – I have photos of both Sophie and Charlie in our bedroom and the kids will often ask about them. We haven’t quite worked out how to mark their birthdays, but we definitely try to do something each year to remember them. One thing we have pledged to do is to plant a tree each year on their birthdays. We currently have Charlie’s Cherry Tree and Sophie’s Olive tree, which we love tending to and looking at.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, it’s a really really personal one for me. I hope these tips help you through whatever tough times you are going through as a family.

Cover photo By dimaberlinphotos on Canva