Sleeping

Sometimes people find it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep when their brother or sister has died.

Perhaps you can get to sleep, but you struggle with nightmares or restlessness. This section will give you some top tips thanks to our friend Lucy from Little Dreams Consulting whose job is helping people sleep well.

We’ve included tips that will help lots of people but if you are worried about a lack of sleep due to a medical reason it’s really important to speak to a doctor.

There are also some activities and sleep sounds available below.

Lots of people struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep.

We all go through periods where sleep is harder, maybe we are anxious, feeling lots of big emotions, or perhaps it's something as simple as we have had too much sugar before bed.

Our brains are incredibly clever, and whilst we are asleep they are working really hard to make sure that we are ready and rested for the next day.

A good night’s rest can help us to feel able to work through some of those big feelings that you may have at the moment.

Below we’ve included some activities to help you with your sleep:

Our top tips:

1. Have a consistent bedtime routine

Make sure you have some quiet time before bed as well, this could be journaling, reading, filling out your memory jar or worry journal.

2. Write a worry journal

Download our worry journal or find a notebook or piece of paper and make your own worry journal. Write everything down, or draw pictures about your worries whenever they spring up.

The next day, either show this to someone you trust, or just tell them about it.

3. Talk and share

Talking about how we feel and sharing it with others isn’t just useful for sleeping, it is great for our mental health. It is completely normal to have big feelings or be worried, always speak to someone about these feelings.

4. Try some mindful breathing

Try our ‘Breathe and grieve section’ on the website with tips to calm you down or get more sleepy. A link is below.

5. Create a memory jar

Download our create a memory activity. Each evening as part of your routine write down something you enjoyed that day and pop it into the jar, you might also want to write a lovely memory you have of your sibling.

Whenever you need to smile, have a look at something you wrote in the memory jar.

6. Get outside! Get moving!

Great sleep starts in the day, being outside can make us feel much happier. Moving around is really important to pump good chemicals called endorphins around our body, all of these things can make sleeping a bit easier later in the day.

We’ve got lots of tips for indoors and outdoors exercises across our website, click below to find out more.