Your child had a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy (surgery to take out the tonsils and adenoids). You can help them recover by giving the pain medicine as directed and making sure they get enough to drink. They should feel better within a week or so. Follow these instructions as you care for your child.

General Care

• Have your child rest at home for 2–3 days following surgery and take it easy for 1–2 weeks.
• If your child's nose is stuffy, a cool-mist humidifier may help. Clean the humidifier daily to prevent mold growth.
• Don't let your child blow their nose for the first 2 weeks after surgery as this could lead to bleeding in the throat. They can wipe their nose gently with a clean tissue if needed.
• Your child can bathe or shower as usual when they feel up to it.
• Your child can return to school or daycare when they can eat normally, are sleeping well, and don't need pain medicine. Usually, this is a week or more after surgery.
• Check with your surgeon about when it's OK for your child to go back to gym class and sports.
• Your child may have bad breath, noisy breathing, white patches on the back of the throat, or a change in the tone of their voice while they're healing. This is all normal and should go away within 2 weeks.

Pain Control 

• Follow the surgeon's schedule for giving medicine for throat, neck, and ear pain. It's important to give these on time in the first few days after surgery because pain will make it harder for your child to drink.
• Pain medicine may include acetaminophen (such as Tylenol^® or a store brand), ibuprofen (such as Advil^®, Motrin^®, or a store brand), or prescription pain medicine. Some pain medicines include the same or similar ingredients. To avoid giving too much, give the medicines exactly as your surgeon recommends.
• When your child's pain starts to get better (after about 3–5 days), you can start to give the medicine only as needed for pain.

Preventing Dehydration

• For the first 3 days at home, offer a drink every hour that your child is awake. Try water, apple juice, broth, or oral rehydration solutions (such as Pedialyte^®, Enfalyte^®, or a store brand).
• Your child can eat when they feel up to it, but this may take a day or two. At first, offer soft foods like flavored gelatin, ice pops, ice cream, frozen yogurt, mashed potatoes, soup, or pudding. As they do OK with soft foods, they can slowly go back to their regular diet.

Your child:

• throws up (vomits) more than once on the day of surgery
• throws up at all in the days after the surgery
• has pain not controlled by pain medicines
• won't drink anything
• has blood flecks or blood-tinged mucus from the nose
• has blood-tinged throw-up or spit
• gets a new or worsening fever

Your child:

• shows signs of dehydration, such as a dry or sticky mouth, peeing less often than usual, dark pee, sunken eyes, or crying with little or no tears
• spits out or throws up blood
• has a bloody nose
• throws up something that looks like coffee grounds
• has trouble breathing or is breathing very fast

What do the tonsils and adenoids do? They're part of the body's germ-fighting immune system, but removing them doesn't affect the body's ability to fight infections. The immune system has many other ways to fight germs. But your child can still get sore throats, colds, and throat infections, just like kids who have their tonsils and adenoids.

Why are tonsils and adenoids removed? In kids, it's usually done because they have:

• tonsils that are very big and/or block normal breathing, which can lead to obstructive sleep apnea (pauses in breathing for short periods during sleep)
• frequent throat infections

What problems can happen after the surgery? Most kids recover from the surgery without any problems. Some kids get dehydrated if the pain after surgery makes them not want to drink. Less often, someone can have bleeding or an infection. If bleeding happens, it's usually in the first 24 hours or about 10 days after surgery. Very rarely, the adenoid tissue can grow back.