Some info...
Feeding can be a big problem for a newborn baby with a cleft palate. Normally, the palate prevents food and liquids from entering the nose. The baby with an unrepaired cleft palate has difficulty sucking on a regular nipple and will usually require a special nipple and bottle along with proper positioning in order to feed. With these techniques, the caregiver will learn how to feed the baby before taking the baby home from the hospital. The child's doctor will carefully monitor the child's weight.
So this was what we were faced with. The hospital simply told my husband to go buy a Medela Special Needs Feeder from a nearby breastfeeding clinic. Up to that point our baby fed through a stomach tube that went through his nose. This meant that for the first night of my baby's life he was kept in the nursery and I was not strong enough to get up to go and see him! This was terrible! I didn't sleep at all that night. I kept hearing a baby crying and I was sure that it was my boy calling me!
The next morning my husband brought the bottle, but it was only during that night that one of the nurses on duty had the guts to try and feed my baby with it. She immediately brought him to me and showed me how to use the bottle.
Over the next couple of days we had to teach our baby how to feed. This was incredibly difficult! But once we were discharged from the hospital and back at my mom's place he suddenly started feeding like a champ! Feedings took very long at first. He would fall asleep during a bottle, because he used so much energy to get the milk into his tummy. It took about an hour to get 50ml formula into his tiny body. He'd sleep for an hour and then we started all over again.
Probably the most dramatic part of feeding a baby with a cleft palate is that the milk runs through the nose. To prevent this you have to position him correctly. But even if you feed him 100% correctly, the milk will still come out of his nose when he has a wind or spits up.
Our boy is almost 5months now and I cant believe we had such a struggle in the beginning. His weight is normal and he is growing so fast. Where it took us 1h to feed him 50ml he now drinks 150ml in 15min when he's very hungry! He still has a problem with wind and acid reflux, but that is normal for babies with cleft palates.
For all the other struggling mom's out there: Don't worry. After the first few weeks it does get better! Hold faith! Be patient. And remember that every minute you spend feeding him, is a minute that you use to form an amazing bond with your baby. And that makes it all worth it.
Solids
Babies with clefts can start solid foods at the same age as other babies. But for us this was yet another struggle! The clinic told us that for a bottle baby it is fine to start with solids from 4months. Oh my was this a mistake! Johann hated this. You have to experiment to find the right consistency for solids. It needs to be just right so that your baby can eat without the food coming through the nose. This isn’t harmful to the child and sneezing will usually clear the food out of the nose. Our plastic surgeon recommended only giving him very runny food, but this only made it worse. We started off with cereal with so much milk added to it that it had the consistency of sour milk. This only frustrated him. Being first time parents, we were stupid enough to try solids for the first time when he was very hungry. So giving him this runny cereal just didn’t fill his tummy quick enough. We ended up with a screaming baby. We tried again a few times until we eventually gave up after a few weeks. At about 6months he was finally ready and slowly started to except solids. What was very interesting with our baby, was that he actually accepted hard finger foods beter than cereals and purity. My mom bought baby mum-mum rice cakes and he loved it! So I started to use the rice cakes to feed him. I cooked chicken liver and spread it on the rice cakes and...
The only problem we still had with solids was that it was still coming through the nose. This made our baby furious! He loved all the new textures and tastes, but the moment it started coming through his nose he started screaming. Eventually this got beter, but it took quite a while. What worked for us was the complete opposite of what the plastic surgeon recommended and what other moms experienced. We ended up giving him pieces of bread, very stiff cereals and finger foods, but mainly milk.
