A 3-month-old infant with cleft lip and palate is being prepared for surgical repair. The nurse is providing preoperative teaching to the parents. Which instruction is most important for the nurse to emphasize regarding postoperative care?

A 3-month-old infant, Baby G, is 4 hours post-operative from a cleft lip repair. The parents are at the bedside and appear anxious. The mother is holding the infant, who is fussy and intermittently crying. The father asks, "Is it okay if we just take these arm restraints off for a little while? He hates them and just wants to suck his thumb to calm down. We'll watch him closely."

The nurse recognizes that the infant's crying is likely a combination of pain, hunger, and frustration from the elbow restraints. The surgical site is intact with minimal serosanguinous drainage. The nurse's immediate priority is to reinforce the purpose of the restraints while providing alternative comfort measures.

The nurse gently but firmly explains, "I understand this is very hard to watch. The restraints are the most important tool we have right now to protect his new lip. Even a moment of rubbing or sucking can damage the stitches, which could lead to infection, scarring, or the need for another surgery. We cannot remove them, not even for a minute, because it happens so fast. Let's work together to find other ways to soothe him."

The nurse demonstrates and implements a multimodal comfort plan: administering the prescribed analgesic, swaddling the infant with the restraints in place, holding him upright, and offering a pacifier (if permitted by the surgeon's protocol) by gently guiding it without touching the suture line. The nurse also shows the parents how to periodically remove one restraint at a time for skin assessment and gentle range-of-motion exercises while maintaining full control of the infant's hands. The nurse documents the parent teaching, the condition of the surgical site, pain score, and the infant's response to the comfort interventions.