It's been almost nine months and my older child hasn't slept through the night since his baby brother died. Prior to that he had always done so: went off to sleep himself, never woke in the night, had enough hours and then awoke happy and refreshed. Since December, he only sleeps about 8 or 9 hours overnight, wakes frequently, sometimes once but often twice or three times a night, in tears. He's exhausted. He's not old enough to talk about feelings or what happened - he doesn't have the language yet expressively or receptively. Although he usually goes off to sleep okay, I found last night that as I was out of the house, he couldn't even go off to sleep until I got home. I think this is his grief or, rather, he's reacting to the grief and stress and insecurity that has come to our family with his brother's death, but it's been nine months now... It feels like he'll never sleep through again.

Our daughter is the same. She was three when her sister was stillborn and prior to that she was sleeping well...since then she wakes up almost every night. I, too, think it's a reaction to grief, stress and insecurity. But she's been doing this for a long time now - longer than nine months. One of the hardest things I find about parenting after loss is that I don't know anymore what kind of behaviours are reaction to trauma and what are just regular weird kid behaviours. And then I don't know what to do about them...if it's still trauma that's keeping her awake I don't want to do something like leave her alone to work it out and fall asleep herself, but if it's just a bad habit that's continuing on from an initial traumatic reaction...I don't know. There are so many examples of this for me.

I hope you and your son get some sleep soon.

Ruby, I'm not sure how old your little on is. My kids all struggled to sleep following Theo's death and had a similar reaction when their uncle was killed 5 years ago. I found a book called "The Invisible String" which is about our love always connecting us helped them to understand that I was always there for them even when not present. It is a picture book so accessible to quite young children.

My extended family is very dismissive about kids feeling grief and trauma and say I make it worse by acknowledging it and should just not share my grief with them and pretend it is all fine.

All our kids have woken often at night and needed our help to go back to sleep, our five year old comes in to us several nights a week, our nearly ten year old is only now nearly a year after Theo's death, reducing his wakings to maybe once a week. The 13 year old manages his own wakings these days!

Keep the reassurance and security flowing, it sounds like you are doing an excellent job!

I second the book The Invisible String. It has been well received by our three older children, all still quite young when Ethan died.

How are the rest of your older child's behaviors, routines going? If you notice additional areas where he may be exhibiting anxiety or stress perhaps a child therapist would help - depending upon the age. Sand tray and art therapy have wonderful results. Often are able to support children with limited verbal skills.

Hang in there - being sleep deprived can add to your own grief I think.