Birthday of stillborn

[FedUp120028]

My niece has a birthday coming up but also her twin didn't make it, I just don't know what to send to the parents to acknowledge baby who would be 3.

What did you do when your niece had her 1st and 2nd birthdays?

What did you send the last 2 birthdays?

I'd sent a birthday card and gift for living child and a 'Thinking of you' or blank card to the parents. I might have done this for the 1st birthday, possibly the 2nd also, but not sure I'd continue it annually after that.

I'm also curious what you did in previous years.

In this situation I would send two birthday cards. One to each child, it is still her birthday even though she is sadly not here.

Speak to the parents and see what they actually want. My situation is different because I lost my twin before the actual birth so the date itself isn’t the trigger in that sense. But I really dislike when people mention my boys lost twin in situations where I’m celebrating my boy. Particularly when he hears it and gets sad for his dead twin it can utterly ruin a good thing. If they repeatedly did it on his birthday I would be really angry. He knows he lost a twin he doesn’t need that to be his identity or have it brought up at all significant occasions.

That said I have a friend who lost a twin much earlier than I lost mine, we kind of connected over it at first because she mentions it very regularly and I initially empathised with her thinking it was part of her healing but it seems she plans to make sure this lost child is never forgotten regardless of the impact on the surviving twin. She would definitely appreciate a card acknowledgment of her loss every year.

so yeah I think you need to tacktfully ask them how they wish to handle their grief because everyone handles it differently

you can’t send a card for the next 30 years. you have to stop sometime.

i would suggest speaking to them as the above poster suggests. The living child shouldn’t have their one day a year surrounded with sadness.

The family will always remember the child they lost. But they have a right to detach too. Or they will be at the graveyard birthday christmas mother’s day father’s day easter saints days etc and they’ll go crazy as it’ll consume them.

so i’d speak to them and ask how best to proceed. Perhaps if you want to honour their child you could do a direct debit annually on this day to a charity for whatever the baby died of or something instead of a card. i know it’s not about money as you can’t out a price in life, but in that way youre helping other families in memory of (name) every year.