Adenoid and grommets recovery - please tell me it gets better :(

[Atmywitsend7]

My 2 year old had surgery on Friday as she suffered from glue ear and occasional snoring. I know it wasn’t that long ago but since then it has been hell, refusing day time naps as we seem to have ended up with a routine of being awake for four hours in the night so is having a longer sleep in the morning. She is refusing Calpol and ibuprofen but is clearly in pain. It is a real battle to get her to have any. Her snoring is worse. She will not drink unless we syringe it in and is refusing any milk and, rightly or wrongly, that was my sure fire way to get her to sleep.

She has also started demanding ‘music’ (dancing stars and moons on my phone ) to sleep which I’m doing in desperation but pretty sure we are creating a habit that will be hard to brake :(

Please tell me that once she is healed it will get better. The doctor said she should be well enough to attend nursery today and would bounce back (not that I was planning on sending her this week to be on the safe side) but I honestly don’t see how that would be possible.

I am exhausted and very much regretting it. She has no speech delay (other than slight impediments that I’ve noticed are actually very common in other toddlers, which I am pretty sure is because she really needs to give the dummy up but that is a battle I am just not having right now) and passed her hearing tests but they were sure she had glue ear. They did say after she came round that it had been necessary. The snoring wasn’t actually that much of an issue but they suggested adenoid removal as well.

She also doesn’t want me to sooth her when upset, tells me to go away, hits me and just sobs when I enter the room which is putting a lot of pressure on her dad who is also exhausted.

I did read some recovery stories on here prior to her surgery but they were all so positive. None of them seemed to mention the absolute shitty time I am having right now :(

I think you should get her checked by the doctor, maybe she has an infection? My son was fine after he had grommets, apart from picking up a tummy bug in hospital.

Thank you, I was also wondering this. She has had a slightly raised temperature but was told that was a normal response to the surgery. I’ve been trying since 6 to make sense of booking her an appointment online with no luck. The nhs app just doesn’t work for me :( nor does our gps stupid app. Just will not let me bloody sign in. I’m going to call at 8 but know I will get fobbed off and told to do it online.

I hope you've managed to get an appointment, I thought children were given priority?

I hope she perks up soon poor thing, definitely get an appointment and in the mean time just do whatever works to get through the next week. Things will soon settle. I remember watching Rapunzel at 3am with my eldest once when she was so ill!

My daughter had tonsilectomy, adenoidectomy and grommets inserted 2 years ago at just turned 4. She would accept Calpol, a huge step up from when she was a baby, but refused Ibuprofen.

Days 1 and 2 post surgery it was like it never happened. Days 3 to 5 were hell on earth. Day 6 was a bit on/off, day 7 much better and from then on it was like it had never happened again.

Call 111 or the day surgery unit of the hospital she had the operation at. As it's so close to the operation time they might want to see her. Also, if she's refusing oral painkillers, ask about suppositories. You need to have then prescribed in the UK (over the counter in most EU countries), but they were lifesavers when DD was younger and refusing all painkillers too.

I did manage to get her seen and apparently no infection, the gp seems to think the surgeon got our hopes up with how quick the recovery is 😒.

It hasn’t helped that she seems to have decided now is the time to give up her day time nap as she hasn’t had one since the op. Although I suppose she hasn’t really been sleeping much at night time either so maybe that means nothing. She has continued to eat well and tentatively actually drank from her juicer this afternoon, not a lot, but I suppose that’s some improvement. Also been having some medicine with the help of a hand puppet… who I’m quickly beginning to hate.

I know I just have to wait it out now but I am losing my mind from the sleep deprivation which is probably what’s wrong with her too. We’ve already had two crying fits since bedtime. Hopefully she is about to at least have a couple of hours until the next one, I’m exhausted.

DD had tonsillectomy, adenoids and grommets just before the schools broke up in July. Day 3/4/5 were definitely the worse for it (though she didn’t need the oramorph that the hospital prescribed ‘just in case’). I agree with your GP that the hospital are being optimistic with recovery time as DD took the best part of the two weeks to feel her usual self again

I'm glad you managed to get an appointment earlier and there's no sign of an infection. Maybe the whole process of the operation and being in hospital has unsettled her.
Fingers crossed you'll both manage to get some sleep tonight and she'll soon be feeling better.

It's the pain meds. You have to get them in somehow. Even if it's 1ml at a time.

We were told pain meds every 4 hours for the first 2 days then see how they go.

Try paracetamol suppositories.

Thank you all for your replies

I know, I can’t believe I believed the surgeon. That was a bit ridiculous of me.
She was an awful sleeper as a baby and then we seemed to get in a kind of rhythm just before she turned 2 which wasn’t perfect but I could cope with and had been clinging to ever since.

Last night was a bit better. She was still up for a couple of hours but not as inconsolable as she was the previous nights. Her dad managed to force some more medicine in and she stayed in her room instead of wanting to come downstairs. Still needed some noise from iggle piggle on the phone though.

I’m not sure whether to even try and get her to nap today. It just makes her so angry. She had been showing signs of giving it up prior to this and had had the odd days without one as she simply didn’t want to miss anything. I just know that rest would make her feel better, but when it is making her so upset when I even try I just don’t know if it’s being unsettled from the op or that she genuinely is ready to just not nap anymore. I know no one can tell me, I’m just really starting to doubt myself tbh 😕

Your DD sounds very like my GD when her age. She got very grumpy and obviously needed to have an afternoon nap but simply refused. She did grow out of this phase but unfortunately she still rarely goes to sleep before my DS and DD-i-L at night! (she's 7 now)

Sounds like my kids!

They do pick the worst possible time to drop their naps don't they?! I wouldn't force her to nap, but I would try to keep things quiet and peaceful in the afternoon to see if she'll at least rest. I would watch something calm on the TV and snuggle on the sofa together.

We've had a much better day in terms of drinking and pain management, we have however had an absolute nightmare of an afternoon.

I didn't push the nap, said we would "go for a try" we had no tears, but she pratted around asking to come back down stairs so I said okay that's fine. As the afternoon went on she was clearly tired and kept asking to go to bed, I would take her and then it was a rinse and repeat of wanting to be down and then up and so on until it got to the stage of being far too late for a nap. Then all hell broke loose and we had very short periods of playing happily massively overshadowed by insane tantrums and banshee level tears right up to bed time, when she suddenly decides that actually she's full of life and didn't want to go... Wants to play with daddy.

I think she holds some resentment as it was me that took her to the hospital as dad wasn't able to go.

I probably won't update this anymore as I think it will get quite repetitive with me complaining, as it is I cannot wait to be back at work just so I'm not spending my day being screamed at 😞