The death of a child is a family’s worst nightmare, but sadly it is a reality for a number of us.

When you are faced with the shocking death of a baby or child, life will feel like its standing still and moving fast all at the same time, you will feel like you cannot control anything and decision making will become very difficult. You may feel hurt, helpless and vulnerable,

Shock may overcome you and you may feel numb, anxious and full of disbelief, when the body experiences trauma after the death of a baby or especially if you have given birth to the baby your body goes into shock, the nervous system is telling your brain that the world is not safe and it try’s to protect you from the overwhelming reality of the death. You will need to slowly re-establish your sense of safe and security and if that means avoiding certain people of places then that is OK,

You may want to close yourself off to protect your heart and soul from any more pain, you may be guarded and closed off from people you love or you may feel reliant of specific people who make you feel safe to help you through each and every day,

It important to take your time, don’t rush into decisions, call upon friends and acquaintances that have your best interests at heart to help with the big decision in the early days,

At the time you may think you don’t want to make memories and keepsakes of your little one but they will be all you have to look back on it later days, take lots of photos, of everyone and everything and of every inch of your baby, if you’re not up to it assign the task to someone you trust to do it for you, use all of the things that are available to you, castings, photos, keepsakes, you will never regret having them but you will regret not having them forever,

Make sure you know that you can have your baby with you for as long or as little as you want, baby can go home with you or you can stay with him/her at all times, at the hospital or even at home, you do not have to rush or say goodbye until you’re not ready,

Feel encouraged to pick them up, if you want to hold them hold them, if you don’t, hold them anyway, you have a small window of opportunity to take every inch of them in and you will regret not doing it,

Get a family photo no matter how silly you think it is, you will treasure it forever,

Name your baby, if you have named your baby, use the babies name when you are speak about him/her, it will be comforting when friends and family use the name around you,

Your body will go into survival mode so it will only focus the imperative tasks, you may become foggy, forgetful and spacey and feel a bit zoned out,

Your emotions may be all over the place, one minute you will be OK, next you may be full of rage and anger and within a few minutes you may be crying uncontrollable, all of these feelings are normal, let them come,

You will want to blame someone or yourself, this is very common and normal, we don’t want our babies death to be for no reason so we will try and find any reasoning or answers we can.

You may feel extremely depressed, you may believe that life isn’t important anymore, that there is no future and no point in any of it.

You may no longer see the point in the small stuff like cleaning or showering or eating but it’s important to look after yourself as much as you can, get other people to help with the task that seem too much for you.

You may struggle to sleep or you may be extremely tired even after sleep, grief is exhausting so ensure you rest when you can. Seek help if you are having trouble sleeping, lack of sleep on top of the exhaustion of grief is very dangerous.

You may feel anxious, you may suffer panic attacks over simple triggers and the depths of your panic and despair may feel overpowering like you will never feel joy again, know that in time you will feel joy again and that these emotions are an important part of the journey.

Anxiety can be triggered by painful experiences, objects, places, statements and or people, allow yourself to express these emotions when triggered, avoid situations or people/places whenever you feel you need to, you are the only one who knows what is best for you.

Tears will come when you least expect them or you may feel like you can’t cry.

Tears are the bodies’ way of naturally cleansing out emotions and feelings that are overwhelming, encourage your friends and family to outwardly express these emotions in a safe place.

You will be very overprotective of any living children or pets you have for fear of losing something else you love.

You may not be able to concentrate on fulfilling the needs or others or you may try and busy yourself by keeping everyone else happy, be careful not to overdo it and forget about your own needs, you are the most important.

You will feel extremely alone even in a crowded room.

You will go around and around the grief cycle many times in one day, shock, anger, depression, blame and sadness and back again.

Times and dates will have special meaning to you, so focus on what you need during these days, don’t do anything you don’t want to do, respect how you are feeling at the time and understand that it may change many times throughout the day.

Its OK to smile, don’t feel guilty about feeling joy.

The same goes for feeling sad, no feeling is the wrong feeling.

You will think you need to get better and go back to normal, understand that you will never be back to the way you were, you will spend a lifetime integrating this loss into your being and learn to grow and find a new normal, don’t push yourself to be over it or ‘better’ the love for your child is endless and a piece of you will be with them forever.

‘Why’ these questions may surface uncontrollably and feel consuming at times, you may feel like you can’t move forward until you find the reason and answer for this death happening, ultimately you may never find an answer, a baby’s death does not make sense and it never will.

Find a keepsake(s) that you can relate to your baby, wear it as much or as little as you want, it can be your security and connection to your little one when you are away from home or feeling particularly lonely.

Create a memory corner, a place where you can go to be with your little one, where you can keep all of the trinkets and things that remind you of your baby, don’t rush into chucking any items away that you brought for your baby, keep them in a box until you are in a place where you can go through them and know that you can keep them forever if you want.

Don’t let people push or rush you into things, if you are uncomfortable it’s OK to say no or take someone with you that you trust to speak for you or help make decisions with you, you will be foggy and cloudy for weeks and months afterwards.

Everyone expresses grief differently, try and avoid telling others how they should feel just reassure them that they are safe to feel whatever feelings they want and encourage them to talk about their feelings with someone the trust.

Mothers may find grief more disabling and longer lasting because they were physically connected to the baby and spirit.

Often it will feel like you are taking one step forward and two steps back, be compassionate with yourself this isn’t an easy or straight forward journey.

Remember that the only way to get to the other side is through, there is not short cut through grief, there are tools and support available that can help you but you cannot just be put back together and fixed.

Be suspicious if you have a particularly good day and think you are ‘doing well’ these feelings can mean you are avoiding the grief and the pain and it could come out of nowhere much stronger if you try and pack it away.

Don’t shut yourself away forever, its ok to want to be alone or just with your immediate family for a while, you will feel like you want to stay in your own safe bubble forever and that’s because you feel safe and secure in that place but it’s important to reach out and allow people to come and support you when you are up for it, you need to have people you can unload your grief to, people who won’t try and fix but just listen and be with you in your grief, you need to establish your tribe.

There is no right or wrong way to deal with grief and loss and everyone is different, the one thing that is the same is it can’t be done alone, you need support through your grief and you need compassion only then can you discover your new normal and learn to live with these feelings by being patient and tolerable with yourself, a piece of your heart is now in heaven and you need to figure out how to keep living without that very special part of you.