Among the Young

Foodie - loves desserts, dancing, and all things sparkly.

  • Printables
  • Recipes
    • Desserts
    • Food
  • Fashion
    • Fashion
    • Cricut Vinyl Tee Shirt Ideas
    • DIY Fashion
    • NON-Maternity
    • Styled by 5
  • Still Born
  • Lipsense
    • About Lipsense
    • View Products
      • Lipsense Colors
      • ShadowSense Colors Catalog
      • Skin Care and More
    • Order
    • Join My Squad
  • Contact
    • Privacy Notice

Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve

August 12, 2019 by Kaylynn Zoe 2 Comments

Top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young, has dealt with the loss of a child firsthand. Here, I share some of the tips and tricks that worked for my family, especially my oldest daughter who was dealing with sibling loss.

Life is tricky. As much as I WISH this wasn’t part of life, it totally is and it’s HARD. Helping my daughter with this sibling loss was one of the hardest things I have had to do.

Sibling loss

After we lost our Ian, (read his full story here) I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, which I definitely did. But, I also wanted to be strong for my daughter. I wanted her to remember this as a positive experience instead of one that broke her parents. T knew we were sad and she saw us cry, but I think she also saw how we grew stronger and needed each other more.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: PIN image of a gravestone and charm bracelet

Yes, I had lost a son but she had lost a sibling. Our only child (at the time) was only 3 years old; old enough to know something had happened but young enough to not understand. Sibling loss was never something I thought I’d have to address.

7 tips to help your child grieve

1. Talk about it – and use words that make sense to your child.
We talked. A LOT. As much as I could handle it, we talked about it. Sometimes I cried. Our little one knew we were sad and she knew that we loved her because we told her. Constantly.

2. Give your child a gift from the sibling
After we’d given birth to our Ian, the bereavement specialist came in, spoke to us, and gave us a small bunny to give to our older daughter. I’d never thought about this, but it was GENIUS. When she came to visit us in the hospital, we told her that Ian had left this bunny for her. She was immediately attached to it and never let it out of her sight. To this day (5 years later) she still loves that bunny – it sits on her bed.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of kid sleeping | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a little girl holding a stuffed bunny and sleeping.

3. Use books –
I’ve had great success using books for all kinds of sensitive subjects. In my opinion, when a kids doesn’t listen to their parent, they’ll read it in a book and think it was their idea.

My two favorite books were:

4. Include a picture or a stuffed animal in family pictures
I’ve done my best, but sometimes I forget. I love including our little Ian bunny in our family pictures. Again, sometimes I forget but for the most part we’ve always included it.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of girls and bunny | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of two young girls standing next to each other, wearing matching pink dresses, and holding a stuffed bunny.

*TIP* I found a few extra Ian bunnies at our Dollar Store – total chance, but it has been a lifesaver. Now, I keep one in the car (just in case) and I’ve also given one to each of our younger daughters to help them feel included. Now everyone has their own “Ian bunny.” The real one is still with our oldest daughter, but it’s been nice to have a spare in case anything ever happens to it.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of lanternfest | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a stuffed bunny with floating paper lanterns in the background.

5. Use his/her real name – invite your extended family to do the same.
We have ALWAYS referred to Ian as Ian – never as “the baby” or any other variation. I believe this has really helped our daughter deal with sibling loss.

How to help a child grieve featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of Charmed Collections bracelet" | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a Charmed Collections bracelet.

6. Have a place to go
We opted for cremation instead of a burial site, but we still have a Memorial Stone at the cemetery.
sibling loss by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of chalk on the grave | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a headstone.

Even though our Ian isn’t buried here, it’s a quiet, sacred place to sit. If you don’t have a burial or Memorial stone, find a place that you can go if you need to.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of pinwheels at the grave | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of headstone with a vase of flowers and surrounded by pinwheels.

7. Celebrate milestones

Birthdays are the first thing that come to mind – obviously we celebrate those, but there are other times we go visit Ian like Memorial Day, Easter, and anytime we want to hit up the donut place near his Memorial stone.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of first birthday | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a family kneeling down in front of a headstone and holding blue balloons.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of second birthday&quot | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a family kneeling by a headstone and holding silver balloons.

sibling loss featured by top Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of third birthday | Sibling Loss: 7 Essential Tips to Help your Child Grieve by popular Utah lifestyle blog, Among the Young: image of a family kneeling by a headstone and holding birthday balloons.

Doing these things has helped our oldest daughter deal with sibling loss and taught our younger daughter about Ian. He is part of our family and we love him. Someday we will see him again, but for now we will do our best to remember him and keep him in our daily lives.

https://amongtheyoung.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/7_tips_to_help_your_child_grie.mp4

Click here to read the full story of Ian and here to see our full stillborn journey. It’s been quite the process and we’ve come a long way. My hope is that we can help a few people along the way who have also lost their angels too soon.

Have you experienced a loss or do you know someone who has? Please forward this post or send them my way. I love connecting with other mamas. As soon as you realize you’re not alone in your loss some of the burden is lifted – it really is incredible.

Facebook Twitter Email

Filed Under: Still Born Tagged With: grief, grieving, loss, sibling loss, stillborn, stillborn still loved

Comments

  1. Amanda says

    December 3, 2019 at 7:11 PM

    As you know she lost a dad not a sibling.
    We talk about him everyday. We visit him and celebrate things with him as much as we can. We get seasonal flowers for his bench and decorate with a small tree. She colors with chalk and has talks with her dad and thats her safe spot with him.
    We read books and she sees a play therapist to sort through things she can’t express yet.
    I think these are great things for your family.

    Reply
    • Kaylynn Zoe says

      December 9, 2019 at 10:13 AM

      I love you girl. SO MUCH. I think of you often and love that we have found each other through the internet. It’s so strange, yet here we are – friends!

      The situation is different because she lost a dad, a caregiver, a buddy. My daughter never knew what she was missing – she saw mom and dad sad and knew no baby was coming, but she was sad. Her loss is NOTHING compared to what you and Fi are going through. Hugs and loves your way mama.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RSS Pinterest Twitter icon Instagram Facebook Email

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Use code Young10to get an extra $10 off any 2-night or longer Southern California package



AmongTheYoung copyright 2013. all rights reserved. You may not take any images or content from this site without written permission. Some items, such as food or clothing items, have been sent to me for free - all opinions are 100% my own.

Copyright © 2021 · Beautiful Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in


Wanna be BFFs? Sign up for the newsletter!
Because on Wednesdays we wear pink and you want to get all this goodness delivered straight to your inbox.
Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.
Enter your name and email and get the weekly newsletter... it's FREE!
Introduce yourself and your program
Your information will *never* be shared or sold to a 3rd party.

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in settings.

Among the Young
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.