3yo talking about death

[cheeseandmarmitesandwich]

My mum died before DC were born and I've always tried to make an effort to keep her memory alive, and talked about her to DD1 (3.5). Now I'm not sure if that was a good thing...

She's started asking where "grandma tess" is, I tried saying heaven (even though we're not religious) but somehow managed to let slip that she had died. Now I randomly get questions out of nowhere from "how did she die" (she was old and very poorly) , "is daddy going to die?", when DD2 was ill "will she die because she is poorly?" And recently out of the blue "Grandad John is very old isn't he? He will die soon". She also said recently that she thinks Grandma Tess died because she didn't wash her hands (I think someone at nursery said if you don't wash your hands the germs will make you poorly).

She doesn't seem upset by it, just very matter of fact, but she does keep bringing up death in conversation at random moments so it is clearly playing on her mind. Any idea how I should deal with this??

I think answering her questions as matter of factly as you can, as they come up is the way to go.

Ds "discovered" death at around the same age when we were driving through a town near us and I pointed out the house my grandparents lived in (they died years before ds was born). Of course he asked where they were so the subject came up.

It can be difficult - ds asked a couple of weeks later if he would die, and of course I was desperate to say no and keep that from him for a little longer, but I felt he'd asked the question and we needed to deal with it and did the whole "not for a long, long time and you don't need to think about it or worry about it" and talked about how old my grandparents were and how old his surviving two great grandmothers are, and that was that for now.

Other things will come up that will affect him much more, the death of someone close to him, a pet, a young person and I guess we'll keep answering questions and dealing with it.

I'm not sure it plays on their mind as such, at least not in a sense that they worry about it, it's just new information and they have a lot of questions. It just all gets processed and so the questions come up from time to time. Also they don't have the idea of death as a "taboo" subject, so for them it's no big deal to ask about it at random times.

We have had similar with DD(4). I was initially quite freaked out by it as she mentioned my grandfather out of the blue -she was 3 months old when he passed away- after our neighbour died. I have tried to be as honest as possible without getting into specifics I.e when you are very old sometimes your body stops working properly and you can't fix it - I very much let her lead the conversation and she seems to accept it as a part of life and try to be figuring out her own way.
I think children are quite accepting of death, Our family has not been blessed and I remember throughout childhood aunts and uncles I was close to passing away and I think it's not til you're older that you really realise what it means. Anyway, I guess as long as she isn't upset and are open to talking about it it won't worry her - it's more natural curiosity iyswim?
Rambling a bit but hope this helps a bit!

just tell her the truth and don't make a big deal of it, she will react to how you act. DD almost 5 has been asking stuff like this for well over a year. She knows everybody dies and is't sad, but we cant all live forever or there would be no room for all the children being born. Talk about dinosaurs and fossils, we still remember them and they died out 64,000,000 years ago.
DD likes to know how much you can live without, can you live if you get your arm chopped off? what about your head? that kind off thing.
she is never freaked out about death, no nightmares about death. But a very good understanding of when something is dead its dead.