The Mead Johnson Cleft Lip/Palate Nurser was wonderful! Not only did it require less work from us but it required Riley to suck, which was a good thing. We hand-washed the bottles instead of putting them in the dishwasher. After awhile, the bottles and nipples would wear down a bit and Riley was able to hold her own bottle because the milk would drip out. I was so happy to see her hold her own bottle. Riley used the Mead Johnson bottles until she was switched to a sippy cup.
After meeting with the cleft team, we decided to give Riley a pacifier to encourage her to suck, but we had a difficult time keeping the pacifier in her mouth. We ended up using a burp cloth to help keep it in. While she slept on her side, we would roll it up and stick it in front of the pacifier. If she was sitting up, we would fold the towel so it was long and place it around Riley�s neck and over the pacifier. To this day, Riley loves her towels. She has to hold a towel and she rubs it on her face to help her fall asleep. My husband and I joke that Riley doesn�t have a security blanket, she has a security towel. At least it�s smaller and can fit in her pocket when she gets older. The first time I heard Riley suck her pacifier was after her palate was repaired and I just cried. It was such a wonderful sound. My heart still swells with pride and love when I hear her sucking away.
Riley was not a big fan of jarred baby food. I introduced jarred baby food to Riley when she was 5-months-old. She hated it and would not eat it so I backed off. Later she would eat a little baby food but not much. Because when you swallow, your tongue pushes up against your palate, which forced food up into Riley�s nose and come out. I think it also tickled her nose because she would sneeze every time she ate and baby food went everywhere. Sneezing forced more food out, scaring Riley and she would scream and cry. I always had a lot of napkins with me and would just quickly wipe her nose and then she was fine.
Riley loved table food/solids. She basically went straight to solids and skipped baby food. She was on mostly solids, plus breastmilk by the time she was 6-months-old. Whatever we ate, she ate, I just mashed it up for her and table food did not go up her nose as much as the baby food. Her favorite was the little tubs of chicken and noodle O�s. I would just mash it up with a fork until it was mush and feed it to her with a spoon. She loved it. She also ate cottage cheese, Jell-O that was mashed up, mashed bananas, mashed carrots, anything that I could mash up she would eat, except mashed potatoes. I think it�s because mashed potatoes are thick and it would get pushed up into her nose and she couldn�t breathe.