From one parent to another - with Love

It is back (Night-time Grief - Insomnia), and I know that it is okay not to be okay this month. I know I need to make sure I have got used to it, as many others do. I also know the boundaries and take time out from the world. Alone, and with Harry. But for now, it is insomnia on paper and complicated grief. From one parent to another

For those who haven’t heard the term before, night‑time grief is something many people quietly live with. As a baby loss parent, it’s something I’ve carried for years — but it can rise from any form of trauma, any deep loss, any moment that reshaped your life. t arrives in waves. Sometimes soft. Sometimes fierce. Always in the hours when the world finally stops moving.

Every time I settle into a healthy sleep rhythm, something shifts. Someone else in our community loses a loved one. Another anniversary comes around. Or I reach that point where I need to step back from grief for a moment… and that is exactly when it steps forward. Life feels back to front.

June has held so many tender days this year — days tied to friends, family, memories, and anniversaries. It’s not usually a difficult month for me, but this time it brought unexpected wobbles. The kind that sits quietly in the chest. The kind that keeps you awake long after the rest of the house has settled. The kind that reminds you that grief doesn’t follow a calendar, and it certainly doesn’t wait for cooler weather or calmer days.

There is something about the night that makes grief feel louder. Maybe it’s the silence. Maybe it’s the exhaustion. Maybe it’s the way the mind finally has space to wander into places we avoid during the day.

I’ve found myself lying awake, listening to the hum of the night, feeling the familiar ache of missing those who should still be here. Babies, children, friends, family — each one held in a different corner of my heart.

Night‑time grief makes you feel both fragile and fiercely connected. Fragile, because emotions sit so close to the surface. Connected, because somewhere out there, someone else is lying awake too, thinking of their own little one, their own person, experienced trauma, their own story.

So I want to ask:

Who else feels the weight of memory more deeply when the world goes quiet?

Who else knows the ache that arrives in the small hours

If you want to share, you’re welcome to comment below. If it feels easier, you can email us — and we can share your words anonymously if that feels safer.

Tonight, I’m reminding myself — and anyone else awake in the small hours — that these moments don’t mean we’re going backwards.

They mean we loved deeply.

They mean we remember.

They mean we’re human.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

Rituals, Anniversaries, and the Quiet Hours

There are parts of grief that change quietly over the years — not because we choose to change them, but because life moves, we grow, and our hearts find new ways to honour the ones we miss.

I can’t quite remember when our yearly rituals shifted, only that they did. Without planning it or speaking it aloud, Harry and I always seemed to choose the same things.

We kept our traditions: releasing balloons, blowing bubbles into the sky, creating acts‑of‑kindness packs — always in the number of the age they would have been. These rituals became a language of love, a way of marking time that should have been filled with birthdays, milestones, and memories.

We all have those special rituals. I’m not sure they ever truly end. And maybe they’re not meant to. They’re threads that keep us connected, even when the years move further away from the day everything changed.

But they also bring the nighttime episodes. Sometimes weeks before an anniversary, the body remembers before the mind catches up. This year, I struggled more than I shared. The weight of it sat quietly, and I carried it the best I could. I reached out when I needed to — and right now, it’s one day at a time. I’m letting myself move with the tide instead of fighting it.

And strangely — or maybe not strangely at all — the nighttime is where I feel most at ease. When the world is quiet, when the heat finally settles, when the house is still — that’s when I feel closest to peace.

There were years when I didn’t have that luxury. Years of working through the days and lying awake through the nights. Once, I went eleven days like that — dipping in and out, catching an hour here and there. That was the moment I knew I needed professional support. Sometimes the emotional rollercoaster needs a brake, and you can’t pull it alone.

Night‑time grief doesn’t mean we’re breaking.

It means we’re remembering.

It means we’re loving.

It means we’re human.

Tips and gentle resources will follow — sharing is caring.

And I also waffle when I am awake all night..... :)

Time waits for no one!