Columbus Day: A Time for Reflection, Discovery and Family Connection

Celebrate Columbus Day with your family through meaningful reflection, discovery and togetherness, even in the journey of caring for a baby in the NICU.

When you think of Columbus Day, you might first picture history lessons or parades, but for families navigating the NICU, the day can hold deeper meaning. It is a moment to pause, reflect on exploration, personal and collective growth, and strengthen connections in your family journey.

Here, we offer ideas to help families mark the day with intention, support sibling relationships, open gentle conversations, and build memories, even during challenging times.

1. Reframe Discovery: Your Family’s Journey

Columbus’s voyage is often framed as a journey into the unknown. As a family caring for a baby in the NICU, you are on your own kind of voyage, moving step by step into healing, growth and parenthood.

• Use Columbus Day as a metaphor, talk with your children about courage, hope and perseverance.

• Share in age-appropriate ways how your baby’s path may not look like other babies at first, but exploration, medical, emotional and developmental, is part of growth.

“In every new baby, there is a world yet to be discovered, our role is to hold steady, stay curious, and walk beside them.” — Onsite Neonatal

2. Simple Family Rituals of Togetherness

Even in the midst of medical care, small rituals ground your family.

• Memory jar: On Columbus Day, invite each family member to write one hope or wish for the baby’s future. Later, read them together.

• Nature walk or moment outside: If possible, step outside for a few minutes, observe leaves changing, listen to wind, feel the sun.

• Family circle time: Even five minutes of sharing one thing you are grateful for or one thing you hope for helps keep hearts connected.

3. Engage Siblings with Curiosity

Siblings may struggle when a newborn is in the NICU. Columbus Day provides an opportunity to include them in gentle discovery:

• Ask them to draw a “map” of where they hope the baby’s journey will go, home, crawling, walking, etc.

• Encourage questions: “What do you wonder about the NICU?” Use honest, age-appropriate answers.

• Let them pick a small “treasure,” sticker, card or drawing to send to the baby’s bedside or include in the memory jar.

4. Conversation Ideas: History, Change and Respect

Columbus Day includes complex history. Depending on your family’s values, you can:

• Frame dialogue around exploration and perspective, not just celebration.

• Introduce ideas of Indigenous Peoples’ Day or other perspectives, discussing how history has many sides.

• Encourage children to ask questions. Use trusted resources and encourage critical thinking. (See ParentsTogether’s guide on teaching facts about Columbus Day (parents-together.org))

5. Honor Your Feelings and Practice Self-Compassion

For parents in the NICU, holidays can stir emotions, hope, fear, longing. Use Columbus Day as a reminder that it is okay to feel both proud and vulnerable.

• Pause for a quiet moment, even one to two minutes, just to breathe and acknowledge your strength.

• If possible, lean on your support network, partner, family, NICU social workers or a friend.

• If you journal, write one thing you have “discovered” about your child’s resilience, your own strength or your family’s journey.

6. Extend Compassion Through Giving

Small acts of kindness help siblings and parents feel connected, even during challenging times.

• Consider a small act of kindness: drop off a card or care package for another NICU family.

• Share a positive note or message on your hospital’s family resource board or message wall.

• Post a family photo or thought, if you are comfortable, with a hopeful caption, it might brighten someone else’s day.

Why Columbus Day Matters for Families

This day can serve as a gentle reminder, in both history and personal life, journeys begin with uncertainty. For families caring for babies in the NICU, each step, each milestone is an act of courage and discovery. Columbus Day gives you a moment to honor that path, for your child, your family and your shared future.

Beyond Bill Pay: Growing Together

At Onsite Neonatal, we want our site to be more than just a place to pay bills. Our Family Resources section offers articles, reflections, guides and emotional support content designed for families in every stage of the NICU journey, including days like today. Does your family have a Columbus Day intention, hope or ritual? Join the conversation, comment below or reach out to our team.