Parenting With a Broken Heart: Raising Children After Baby Loss

Grief and love can—and often do—exist at the same time.

There’s a tender kind of parenting that no one talks about.

The kind where your arms are full, but your heart still aches. Where you’re singing lullabies and making school lunches, while grieving the baby who didn’t get to stay.

Parenting after loss isn’t just parenting. It’s balancing the weight of sorrow and joy in the same breath. It’s holding space for the child in front of you—and the one who lives only in memory.

You’re Still Grieving

Even with a baby in your arms or a toddler tugging at your leg, the grief doesn’t vanish. It shifts. It quiets. It shows up in unexpected moments:

• In the “how many kids do you have?” question

• In the missing seat at the dinner table

• In the dreams of what could have been

You might feel guilt for feeling joy. Or guilt for still feeling sad.

Your grief doesn’t take away from your love. And your love doesn’t erase your grief.

Both are real. Both deserve space.

The Silent Work of Holding Two Realities

You’re raising a child (or children), and it takes everything you’ve got—patience, energy, laughter, presence. But there’s another part of you always tuned to the baby who’s missing.

You might:

• Light a candle after bedtime

• Whisper their name in the quiet

• Touch your necklace, tattoo, or photo before you walk out the door

• Pause, just for a breath, in a room where they never got to be

This is parenting too. It’s invisible to the world, but it’s real.

You’re mothering/fathering more than one child. One just happens to live in your heart.

You’re Not Alone in This

You might feel like no one else is walking this path—but you’re not alone. There are many of us parenting with full hands and broken hearts. Parenting through birthdays and grief days. Parenting through triggers and milestones. Parenting through both.

You are not doing it wrong. You are doing something profoundly sacred.

Let the Grief Be Part of the Love

You don’t have to pretend to be okay. You don’t have to hide your tears from your children.

Let them see tenderness. Let them learn that love can stretch far enough to hold sorrow, too.

Let your grief remind you how deeply you love. Let your love remind you that it’s okay to keep going.

A Gentle Invitation

If you're parenting after loss, you are welcome here. You are seen. You are strong in ways few understand.

Whether you talk about your baby daily, or hold their memory quietly, you are parenting them still.

And that, in itself, is love in its purest form.