DS had his tonsils and adenoids out. I'll be honest and say the recovery period wasn't very pleasant. He went into the surgery quite happily. We read a couple of hospital books so he knew what to expect and we made jelly the day before. We also gave teddy an operation running through all the things we saw in the story to prepare him.

I tried to stay positive and kept my anxiety to myself and so he went under anaesthetic just fine no drama. When he woke up in recovery it was a different story. Apparently a lot of kids are really disorientated when they come around and as they aren't used to feeling that way can be really distressed. That was my DS he screamed and cried until he eventually fell asleep on me again. The nurses kept a close eye on him and said he was fine and that was a common reaction.

We stayed overnight in the hospital. The first meal he ate he spat out because even though he was hungry his throat must have felt funny so he didn't even want ice-cream and jelly so in the end he just ate Ritz biscuits I brought from home. He also wouldn't admit he was in pain so keeping up the pain medication was important. Even if he said he was fine he would go from fine to falling apart quickly so keeping that going was super important. It took 10 - 14 days for him to come off the pain medication. We used Painstop and Nurofen. Our surgeon said that alot of surgeons don't recommend Nurofen as there is an increased risk of bleeding but in her cases she hasn't found any evidence of that. I found Nurofen was good to give before meals as it seem to reduce the inflammation in his throat so he could eat and the Painstop was a more general overall effect. We then backed off the Painstop and moved onto Panadol.

Overall for the recovery the days were generally ok as he had distractions but we found nights hard as he seemed to wake often in pain or being in that disorientated state again but that all settled down. We also had to try and get him to rest which with a 3 year is hard. He ate lots of icecream and yoghurt wasn't interested in jelly. So we found it hard but one day it just all stopped and he didn't need the pain relief any more and it was all over and done with. Even though it was a hard period we are happy we have had it done. He sleeps so much better now and has all the benefits of that and so many people have told me what wonderful results kids have had from these procedures. "Like a new kid" is the phrase I have heard a lot from the parents I spoke to. Short term pain for long term gain.

Good luck hope it all goes well.