Telling living children about lost sibling?

NoSugarCoating

My now-3.5-year-old son was about 18 months old when we lost his baby brother, Benjamin, due to PPROM. We were just broaching the subject of having a new sibling when we had our loss, so he doesn't remember that I was pregnant or that we lost Ben. 

I would like him to know about his baby brother. But I don't know how to talk about it with him, or what level of knowledge (if any) he can handle at this age. We are not religious, and do not believe in heaven. 

Anyone dealt with this? Tips? Suggestions? 

mrslucid

I wish I had advice for you.  Our loss was in August 2014 and I think a lot about if we have other children, how we will tell them about their sister. It is such a hard boat to be in. 

MCH77

We lost Timothy in January 2014, when DS was 2 1/2 (he will now be 4 in July). DS has no memory of the events. I talk about Timothy openly (not often), so he has heard his name. I figure his connection will develop naturally with time. If that makes sense. I'm not hiding it, but he's young I don't want to confuse/scare him.

stefuge

We lost our younger son when our older son was 3 1/2, so a bit older than your son. We have made a point to keep Colton, our younger son, a part of our family and we talk about him often. We have photos up around the house, and in our older sons room. I collect elephants in memory of him since we had decorated with elephants in his nursery and have those all around the house. We also planted a tree in the backyard for Colton and decorated it for Christmas, along with poppies (his birth month flower) planted in the yard in the spring. We celebrated his first birthday with cupcakes and had a small party and blew him bubbles. We also sent him a balloon on his due date and on his first angelversary with messages from all of us, including my older son. We plan to continue small traditions for holidays and his birthday and to try and create happy memories for our older son so that he will remember Colton in a good way.

It's hard to know how much they understand, but we have tried to be as honest as we can, and keep it as simple as we can. Whenever he asks questions about Colton or death or why he died, we make a point to stop whatever we are doing and have that conversation with him. I do feel like he thinks about and asks about death more than a lot of kids his age, but I don't know how to change that. He lost his little brother and it has had a huge impact on all of our lives.

If you're interested, feel free to visit my blog (link in my siggy) as I share all about what we have done to grieve as a family.

Xath

My oldest was about that age when my daughter passed away. We got him a copy of "We Were Going to Have a Baby but We Had an Angel Instead" which we read sometimes. It's not specifically religious but does suggest an afterlife of some sort. The back of the book has a lot of activity suggestions about how to talk about your lost child with your living child, and ways to include them.

We were fortunate to have pictures of our daughter so he looks at those and we talk about her. Do you have any ultrasound photos?

NoSugarCoating

@gertiebarden Thank you for the book suggestion. Yes, we do have one ultrasound photo.