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This little girl had her tonsils out last week. And we all survived. If you are a mom of a kid who has had their tonsils out you know it is a whole family thing. So today I am going to share what helped us get through smoothly. I like to be prepared so I am going to share what worked for us.
Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor, these are suggestions that worked for our family.
Here is our little girl right after surgery and then at home in the doctor hat that we got from the hospital.
Tip #1: Keep up with the medication.
Of course- go by what your Doctor tells you. But do not get behind on the pain medication. At our doctor's suggestion, we piggy-backed Ibuprofen with the Tylenol the doctor prescribed us. Each of our meds could be given every 6 hours, so we alternated them every 3 hours. We even woke her up in the middle of the night to do the meds. You don't want the pain to come back because it is hard to come back and the kids get scared to eat and drink because it hurts. Set an alarm and do the meds. It will pay off in the end!
Tip# 2: Keep up with the Water
You don't want your child to become dehydrated, which could lead to constipation or worse! I mean they are in enough pain already without worry about constipation! We had our daughter drink water and Pedialyte (as you can tell from the pictures we buy the store brand) or sports drinks to keep up on electrolytes. We got her a couple "Special Cups" for her to drink out of with straws and her favorite characters. Drinking will also help their throat too so make them take a few sips when you can. Like during a movie every time a character says a word they can take a drink. Or if you read a book, take a sip each page turn. Find reasons to take a sip.
Tip #3 Get them to eat food
Our doctor told us that our daughter could eat anything but to start with soft foods. Most people say not to eat crunchy things, but our doctor said that if they do it is not going to hurt the stitches. He said it's different for each kid and to let them take the lead on what they want to eat. Start out with the soft foods and move from there.
We had talked up the ice cream and freezies so that is where our daughter wanted to start. She then moved on to pudding and then asked for salad. Wait- what? My five year old wanted salad? Yep and she ate it and asked for more. Ok. She was fine. She did say that the cold food helped her throat feel better so we keep going back to the freezies.
Tip#4 Incentives (AKA: Bribery)
Our daughter HATED the pain meds (and as you read tip#1 we were doing them all the time) so we had to find a way to motivate her to take them. We got a sticker book and a bunch of stickers. Each time she had to take some meds and she did a good job (read: did not spit them out) she got some stickers for her book. If we needed her to drink- she could earn stickers in her book. If we wanted her to take a good nap- more stickers. Use it for what your kids needs motivation for. If your kid is not into stickers, find their currency (which might actually be real currency -cash-) You could do quarters to earn a toy, pokemon cards, legos... what ever your kid is into
Tip# 5: Come up with Distractions:
You are going to want to have them things handy to take their mind off the pain. Here are some of the things we did:
1. Simple crafts: We got some easy crafts for her to do while she was home during the day.
2. Watch some favorite movies.
We love
Netflix and that each kid gets their own section to save all their favorite shows and movies. We watched a lot of Tinkerbell, Everafter, Care Bears, and Mr. Peabody and Surman. I also love that Netflix saves the spot of the movie, so if we need to stop to take meds- it was always at the right spot when we came back to it. It is also wonderful that we can stream it on any device we could be anywhere. This came in very handy at the hospital. Having her watch a movie while I talked with the doctors and nurses was great!
3. Sick Day Movie Party
Who says you can't party when your sick! Find out all the details
HERE
4.Take a field trip:
we took walks (because it was nice out finally) went to the library, the park, grandma's house. Let you kid give you the lead if you feel like they can handle it. We walked with the stroller. But a change of scenery can help a lot and some fresh air (if possible) is always good.
Honorable Mention Tip:
Patience and positive attitude
This may go without saying (but I am going to say it anyways)- You are going to need a lot of patience. I mean my kid doesn't want to take her meds. It is a fight every time. But the times I lose it with her is a lot worse then if I can take a breath and claim down and just get through it. And having a positive attitude helps too. My daughter is a pessimist at heart. She says a lot of "I never get to..." or "You never let me..." So during this time she was all "I am never going to get better" So, I tried to combat that with some positive things that she gets to do like: stay home in her Pjs all day, or eating ice cream for lunch. Try and find a positive spin to put on it.
Hope this gives you some ideas to survive your own tonsillectomy or any other recovery that your child may need.
Tell me what tips do you have?
*Disclosure: I am part of the Netflix Stream team. However all opinions are 100% honest!
