NICU babies dress up for Halloween at Sanford Health

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Halloween has taken over the NICU at Sanford Health.Each year the unit dresses up the premature babies in costumes.

“She’s Rapunzel, it’s super cute. It has a lot of detail and stuff. They did a really good job on the costumes,” Carissa Jurgens, mother of Charlotte Jurgens said.

Keeping Carl’s Closet full of Halloween costumes

Baby Charlotte has been at the Sanford NICU for over a month as she continues her respiratory and feeding support.

Her mother says she’s happy to see her daughter celebrate her first holiday.

“I didn’t know they were going to do like little costumes for her because she can’t wear clothes yet. So I didn’t think that they would get costumes, too, but they have little costumes that they lay on them so they’re super cute,” Jurgens said.

This year Sanford dressed up six-day-old, Tucker Cole as Winnie-the-Pooh.

“We came into his room and saw it sitting on the counter and we didn’t really know what it was for. And then the nurse explained it to us,” Kaylee Cole, mother of Tucker Cole said. “So it was really fitting that it was Winnie-the-Pooh, too, because that’s one of his grandmother’s favorite storybook characters. So that was really cute,” Cole said.

Cole’s first child was also born premature and says the NICU can be daunting for families.

“It means a lot to kind of get your mind off of things a little bit because there’s, like, beeping going off all the time alarms and it can be really scary at times. So just to be able to focus on something else, something a little more positive means a lot,” Cole said.

The tradition of dressing up the babies has been ongoing for decades, however, this year they were made by high schoolers.

“The fashion design teacher from Lincoln High School reached out and said her class had come up with this idea, had seen it on a website to create some Halloween costumes for babies in the NICU and said, we would love to have that,” the nursing director at Sanford NICU, Kristi Randall said.

A tradition Sanford Health plans on continuing each year.

Sanford Health shared photos of this year’s costumes you can see below.

“I just think it’s really special that they still get to like enjoy the holidays and do special fun things for the babies even though they can’t really leave the hospital or do much,” Jurgens said.

About 45 costumes were created by the students.