Preparing 9 Mo for general anaesthetic

[IndiaBound]

Hi all,

Hopefully someone has been through this and has done advice.

Our LO needs to have a GA for a precise MRI at 1.30pm.

We have been told no food after 7am and no water after 9am.

Her normal schedule is:

8am - First bottle (7oz)
9.30am - Porridge breakfast
11am - sometimes a 4oz bottle
1pm - lunch

We have her drinking baby squash with her Porridge and intend to wean her onto water before the date.

So, we need to feed her breakfast at say 6.45 on the day, which means her bottle at 5.15am.

Is it a case of just getting her up early that day or would people suggest taking a couple of weeks to acclimatise her to getting up at 5pm? the only problem I can see with this is her body clock fighting back and her kipping more during the day. If we get her up early and pay with her, then we could tire her out and maybe she will sleep late morning.

As always, advice really appreciated.

Graham

Think my inclination would be to wake early on the day if you think you could persuade her to drink / eat while so tired. Would also advise on stocking up on some favourite toys / books / balloons / bubbles / whatever for distraction purposes as she may not be very happy about the situation. Our ds (now 7) has always been first on the list for GAs.

Why not have a trial run a few weeks before the day, to see how she responds to being fed early?

Would she dream-feed at, say, 5am? (At that age mine had inly just dropped a dream-feed at 10-11pm.) Then back to sleep and wake for porridge at 7am.

DS had a GA at 6 months. I was able to bf until 4 hrs before, plus food 6 hrs before. I think we gave him a fruit puree as we knew he would eat it fairly easily. I wouldn't do too much to be honest to shift the pattern as it is just one day of disruption compared with the hassle of getting up for a few weeks before and then having to coax her body back afterwards. Make sure that you don't eat in front of her when she is fasting and don't leave food anywhere that she can access.

Once she is at the hospital it is all novel and different so surprisingly ds didn't seem to mind or notice being hungry. They will be wanting to do lots of tests before the GA - we had surgeon around to explain procedure and get consent, plus anaesthesiologist to check for chest infection etc. Be aware that if she has a cold on the day then they may well cancel the procedure - this happened with ds. Usually you will be able to go with her to the place where she is anaesthetatised and hold her as she begins to go to sleep but then you will be sent away we were told to go back to the ward after an hour.

Ds had another op a few months ago when he was 4 and again once he got to the hospital he barely mentioned food until afterwards.

I'd agree about doing a one off.

DS had a general anaesthetic for an MRI at about 6 months and we found he was out of kilter for a day or two after. I wouldn't worry about routines because he will most likely be running to his own schedule for at least that day and possibly the following day.

Hope it all goes ok for you.

As patilla says expect disruption afterwards. It actually took ds almost a week for his appetite to return this time. They said it was not unusual for it to be disrupted. Hope it all goes well.

Remember to take food for afterwards!

Hi, do this in a regular basis and have for all of dds life.

It won't be as bad as you think.

I usually give her milk when she wakes and then leave the house immediately do that the usual prompts for breakfast aren't there and distractions are a plenty.

Lots of new toys and distractions and some food for after.

It will be worse for you than it is for her. Big hug