After an adenoidectomy, kids may have throat pain, bad breath, noisy breathing, and a stuffy nose for a few days. This information can help you care for your child at home while they recover.

• Follow your health care provider's recommendations for giving any medicines. Do not give any other medicines without checking with your health care provider first.
• Your child should relax quietly at home for 2 or 3 days.
• Give your child plenty of clear, bland liquids, like water and apple juice.
• When your health care provider says it's OK for your child to eat, offer soft foods, like pudding, soup, gelatin, or mashed potatoes. Offer other foods as your child starts feeling better. Your child may find cold foods such as ice cream and ice pops comforting.
• If your child's nose is stuffy, a cool-mist humidifier may help. Clean the humidifier daily to prevent mold growth.
• Your child should not blow their nose, do any contact sports, or play roughly for week after surgery to prevent bleeding.

Your child:

• has a fever
• vomits after the first day
• has neck pain or neck stiffness not helped with pain medicine
• refuses to drink
• isn't urinating (peeing) at least once every 8 hours
• has very noisy breathing or snoring that doesn't get better within a week

• Your child appears dehydrated. Signs include dizziness, drowsiness, a dry or sticky mouth, sunken eyes, peeing less often or darker than usual pee, crying with little or no tears.
• Blood drips out of your child's nose or coats the top of the tongue for more than 10 minutes, or if bleeding happens after the first day.
• Your child vomits blood or something that looks like coffee grounds.
• Your child is having trouble breathing or is breathing very fast.

What are the adenoids? The adenoids are a patch of tissue in the back of the nasal passage. They help trap germs and keep us healthy, especially in babies and young children. As children grow older, the adenoids get smaller. Adenoids can get bigger from infection or allergies.

Will my child's immune system be weaker without adenoids? Even though the adenoids are part of the immune system, removing them doesn't affect the body's ability to fight infections. The immune system has many other ways to fight germs.