Miscarriage/Pregnancy Loss
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Telling your LO
Paige kisses my belly every night before bed. Tonight she wanted to do it again. All I told her was the baby got sick and is no longer in Mommy's belly. Is there anything else I can tell her to get her to understand?! She is 3. TIA for any suggestions!
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Re: Telling your LO
I am so sorry for your loss. My daughter is almost exactly the same age as your daughter (I actually remember her from round #1 back in 2007). Telling her about the loss was by far the worst part. She had been so excited to be a big sister and we had been talking about it constantly for weeks. She was hysterical, which of course made it even worse for me and DH, seeing her hurt.
I don't know if you are comfortable with the idea of heaven, but when we lost our son, we told our daughter that the baby was no longer in mommy's belly, that her brother went to heaven. She had lots of questions, of course. I could not do bedtime for over a month because she would always want to talk about her brother and heaven while snuggling and it broke my hear into ten million pieces. We had to explain that he was not coming back. We showed her pictures of our Pop Pops (who are both diceased) and told them that they were in heaven as well.
She grasps the concept. When people ask her if she has any brothers or sister she matter of factly tells them that her brother is in heaven. She knows that mommy was happy when she had a baby in her belly. She knows that mommy is sad becaus the baby went to heaven and wasn't in her belly anymore. Sometimes she puts things under her shirt now, 4 months later, and says, "Mommy I am so happy b/c there is a baby in my belly". If I am sad about something else, even a TV show, she'll crawl on my lap and ask if I am sad because the baby went to heaven.
I am so sorry you are going though this. They really pick up on a lot and I bet she'll understand it exactly how you said.
DD #1 born 9/07 ** DD #2 born 7/11 ** Operation Take Back My Body has begun 10/11
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I am so sorry for your loss.
I don't what to say about the LO. I am very glad that my DD didn't understand yet. When we did start to talk about the baby, she thought we were talking about her cousin, who she calls baby.
Happy Birthday to your little girl!
My son will be 2 in just a couple of days. He sort of got that I was pregnant, but the concept was difficult for him to grasp. He had, however, developed the habit of kissing my belly and lifting my shirt up to look at the baby (he thought my belly button was a peep hole, apparantly). I did the best I could to explain to him about the baby being gone, but he does NOT get it - even when I was explaining about the baby, he kept lifting my shirt to look at the baby......My suggestion is, just keep explaining, and downplay the baby talk with your daughter. She will tire of the "game" (really, she doesn't have the processing ability to understand yet, so to her, its all fun and talk), and eventually she'll stop talking about it. And as hard as it is, try to not break down when she mentions the baby - she doesn't know it hurts you, and she'll be very confused.....
I am dealing with a similar situation, with my nephew, who is 6. I have been helping raise him since he was very young. He understands the idea of death, but his concept of death is somewhat perverted. He has moderate asperger's syndrome (autistic spectrum disorder), so his processing of emotional situations is off as it is. He, too, was constantly kissing my belly, and still is. On the day his grandfather died, just shortly after he was told (my mother was still breaking down in front of him), he asked very loudly "How many people are in our family now that Opa's dead? We should count how many are in our family now that we don't have Opa anymore..." Today, I was upset about many things, and just feeling overwhelmed, and he ran up to me and blurted out "Are you sad because the baby died?" In his case, unfortunately, his mind is a steel trap and he does not forget (or stop talking about something once he has fixated), so I just have to keep patiently answering the questions he asks over and over again and try not to show emotion (it confuses him and makes him ask more questions). It's rough. I'm sorry I can't offer any better advice. Just keep explaining to your daughter, and hope she'll lose interest in the subject.
I think what you said was fine. I just went through this with my LO (DD is 4 yo). She did the exact same thing - every night she kissed my belly and blew razberries on it daily. She was so looking forward to the baby. We actually waited to tellher for about 1.5 weeks. It was very difficut for us. We ahd actaully lost our DD#2 at 7 mos. of age lastyear. So DD#1 had been through a loss of a sibling before. However, that was different since DD#2 was born at term and was home for a few months before she got sick. Then she was in the hospital for 4 months so DD#1 knew her sister was very sick. So when she died it was really hard, but a bit easier to tell her, since her sister had been so sick.
This time was not so easy. We struggled with how to tell her when she had already been through so much last year. So DH and I waited until we could handle telling her and then just explained to her babies take a long time togrow in their mommies belly and sometimes they stop growing or get sick. She actually handled it better then us, probably because she didn't really "know" the baby, never saw him or held him so it was probably easie rin that respect. It was harder for us to tell her. She misses the baby and we did tell her he went to heaven and is with her sister.
I found a couple books on the subject you can find at Amazon, they may help explain it. https://www.amazon.com/Were-Gonna-Have-Angel-Instead/dp/0972424113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283264914&sr=8-1
Look also after the description where it has people who bought this also bought... and you'll see some other books. I am sorry for your loss and heartbreak.