How to prepare your preschooler for surgery

Hi, this is Future Ticia 2020, when my daughter was three, she had surgery on both her feet. After we went through the experience I thought it might be helpful to other parents to share how to prepare your preschooler for surgery, and what it’s like. But, this post is 10 years old, and the pictures are a little blurry, and I realize not every hospital is like this. But, the advice might still help someone, so I’m updating all the pictures, and pinning it as part of our science lessons because it became a homeschool preschool science lesson.

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How to prepare your preschooler for surgery

First tip: try to minimize contributions from siblings

So, as you can imagine there wasn’t super a lot of formal science this week.  Instead, we talked with Princess and the boys about what would happen to her when she went to the hospital.  This was especially important because the boys enjoyed tormenting her and telling her that she was going to get lots of shots.

And, it pretty much happened as we told her.  So, here’s a picture-by-picture account for anyone who might have their young child go through surgery.

Also, check out this Franklin book, or a similar book describing what surgery is like.

Preparing your preschooler for surgery: Before the Surgery

First, you get to the hospital.  You have to get there a long time before the surgery.  At this point, it’s probably a lot like going to the doctor.  You get to play with the toys in the waiting room.

Then you go back to another room.  There you get to wait some more. 

Tip 2: Bring toys to play with, if you can arrange to have a new toy

It’s a good idea to bring some toys to play with.  It’s even better if some of them are new.  Princess happily played with her new Ariel doll for the entire time in the waiting room.

When Superman had hernia surgery, he got a new Superman toy to play with while waiting for surgery. As a general rule, they try to schedule surgery for the youngest kids early in the morning, to cut down on the time they’re not allowed to eat.

The nurse will ask you to put on a hospital gown.  She might also ask you to put on pants.  We were lucky to get super cute purple ones.

Some hospitals have toys for you to play with and ride on.  This one had a whole long row of different ride-on vehicles.  The one Superman had his hernia surgery at did not have this.

Learning about surgery

Then a nurse will come in and you get to practice breathing with the special mask.  She will also ask you what flavor you want your sleepy gas to smell like.  Princess chose strawberry.  You get to take home your mask if you ask the nurse.  We took ours home and everyone had fun taking turns pretending to breathe the sleepy gas.

It’s very important to make sure you understand all of this, so examine the mask thoroughly.  In case you’re wondering it does not taste good.  After this, the nurse will take you back to the doctor.

This is the part where they take her back and have her do all of the stuff they had her practice.  After all of this was done, I got to go back for recovery.  Different hospitals have different policies.  The other hospital let both of us go back.  This one only let me. 

Tip 3: Be warned many kids coming out of anesthesia are violent. 

Superman was very violent and ripped out his IV.  I don’t think there was any way Princess could have ripped her IV out.  I didn’t get any pictures of this, but it was taped onto her in three different places and she had a lightweight foam board velcroed to her arm.  She was trying to get off everything she could and really wanted her casts off.

After she got home we set up a little area to sit on.  We discovered that the casts will destroy furniture.

After a very short time, she figured out how to walk around in the casts amazingly fast. Future TIcia 2024 will add in the story of Princess in the double casts clip-clopping around upstairs amazingly fast is told semi-regularly.

Preparing for surgery: taking the cast off

Okay, not all surgeries have this. When my son had his hernia surgery, there was no cast, and they did dissolvable stitches, so we didn’t even have to deal with that.

Which is good, I can’t imagine removing stitches from a two-year-old.

So, we went to the doctor yesterday to get her cast off, as I said at the end of the post. Now the entire process for getting it off was fascinating. So, I’m going to share it with you. I’m odd, I fluctuate between being absolutely fascinated by medical procedures and totally grossed out and not wanting to know anything about it.

First the nur, or technician, I’m no sure of her title, came in and showed Princess the thing she would use to take off the cast. She made a big deal about how it wouldn’t hurt her.

Then she carefully cut the casts on each side of each foot. At first, Princess thought this was fascinating, but after the side on the first foot, she started freaking out. We think it was because the machine was loud, like a vacuum cleaner.

Next, she used tongs to pry the two sides apart. This part was really interesting, and I could see Princess being really fascinated by it.

Then she pulled each of the different halves off. This left only the cotton batting on Princess’ leg. I’m sure they use a different term than batting, but I quilt, so I’m calling it batting.

They cut off the batting and the edges of the cast at the top with some scissors that I didn’t think looked like they could cut anything. They looked very dull to me.

Of course, you have to examine the now castless foot and leg to see if they look any different.  She was very amused at the writing the doctor had to put to identify where to operate.

Apparently, this is a legal requirement.  If she was old enough to write they would have required her to verify it as well, instead we as the parents verified.

And of course, now that the horrible casts are off they make fun toys to play with.

The casts.  Doesn’t it seem like there’s something we should be able to do with these?

My original plan to celebrate the casts being off was rather thrown off by the weather changing from wonderful sunny 70s to cold dank rainy 40s.  So, instead, we went out.

The final step to prepare your preschooler for surgery: Celebrate the surgery is over!

We ate white noodles at the grape place.  Also known as going to Olive Garden and getting Fettuccine Alfredo.

Batman was not as amused, I don’t know the picture amused me.  I was laughing just this Monday at MOPS we had a photographer come in and give us all these great tips on getting wonderful pictures, and I was thinking this day would be a wonderful opportunity to practice these.  What did I do?  Leave my camera at home, so all I had was an iPhone.  That does not let me fiddle with settings and such stuff.

Oh, and poor Superman.  He had spent all week talking about getting Daddy soup, we’re going to get Daddy soup, and then he discovered no one was going to eat it with him.  Poor boy, I learned that for him part of the fun of eating the soup was having someone else eating the soup with him.  Everyone else was eating Mommy soup, and he was not happy about this.  I think I’ll have to make soup some night soon, and then he can happily have someone else eat soup with him.

We finished off up at Dairy Queen with blizzards.  My kids must not be true Texans because they did not like the blizzards and declared next time they just wanted ice cream in a cone.  Oh well, I happily ate mine.

Does anyone else have kids that argue their pajamas are perfectly fine to wear out in public?  Superman was quite insistent this was not pajamas and it was okay for him to wear them.