I have 6 beautiful kids, and a 7th on the way. In January 2012, I found out I was pregnant with number 7 in September. Me and my hubby told the kids in early April. They were very excited, and so were we. But just a month later, we found out that it was a miscarriage. The kids were very disappointed when we told them. My 11 year old, who was 10 understood. I think that my 7 and 8 year olds pretty much understood. But the hardest part was our 4 year old twins, who were 3 at the time. They didn't understand, and a few months later, one of them asked, "When is the new baby coming?" So we tried again to explain it to them. They seemed to understand it, but I think they were a little confused. Our one year old of course didn't understand that there was ever a baby, so it was easy for her. But today, one of the twins asked me how the baby died. I need advice on how to explain it to her. Do any of you moms have any experience or ideas on how to explain it to 4 year old? She will be 5 in July. Thanks do much! Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks everyone!
I have had to tell my daughter when she was about that age. I think one of the things I did was not to skirt around the work "death". I told her that its common for babies in the belly to die. That a lot can go wrong and sometimes they just don't make it. Thats about it. She got is.
So sorry for your loss. I don't have any direct experience with explaining to little ones, but found this link ...
http://miscarriage.about.com/od/copingwithmiscarriages/qt...
There are a couple of age appropriate books mentioned at the end you might find useful.
"You know, sometimes the babies inside a womb stop growing. We don't know why. Sometimes the body just doesn't develop correctly and so it stops living. We don't know why the baby died; sometimes this just happens."
I think keeping it very, very simple is important. Kids at this age don't quite understand human fetal development (usually) so just using simple language which is familiar is helpful. This is something they may ask about again... or not.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
When I had this issue with my 3 year old daughter on top of explaining that the baby died I just told her that whenever we're meant to bring her a sibling it will happen. I told her that I didn't know why the baby died and as sad as it is that sometimes these things happen. She took that as an answer and didn't dwell on it. She's 9 now and whenever she's asked questions I've always just answered them factually and to the best of my ability.
I agree to keep your answers as simple as possible without totally avoiding the question. They might still bring it up because they can't completely comprehend the situation at this age which is normal. My daughters great-great-grandmother died recently at the age of 95. Since my daughter had just visited her at the nursing home we did explain that she died which means that she's no longer here on earth but up in heaven instead. She seemed to understand but she keeps bringing it up lately and asking "when people get old do they die?" and other variations of the question. I try to answer as best as I can. I know this isn't the exact same as your situation but I think they are so inquisitive at this age about things that they can't quite wrap their head around and that's ok.
Just expect that your twins might bring it up a few times before they understand and be open to their questions. If they ask when the new baby is coming, just say "the baby we thought was coming isn't coming anymore. maybe a different one will come someday but we don't know when." or something along that vein.
When I was first pregnant we told my daughter early on a week later my period started. I told her that sometimes there's something not quite perfect inside a woman's body and the baby doesn't grow right. I explained to her that Pindot was a lovely surprise, but that my body wasn't ready for it at that time. I told her that now I knew that there was a baby that we needed in our family so now I was going to do everything in my power to make my body ready for the baby. The miscarriage was in Nov. of 2012, I was pregnant again within the second week of Jan. 2013.
