From bottle to cup

[Alicia]

I have an 11 month old baby girl who has had two surgeries.
She was born with cleft lip/palate/and gum. Her lip has been
repaired. She has always used a cleft nurser. We are now trying
to transition to cup. We bought one of the progression ones, 6
steps, I put cross cuts in the nipple like her cleft nurser, but
she still son't use it. The regular spill proof cups don't work
because she cant suck hard enough, the non-spill proof goes
everywhere. Does anyone out there have any advice. Thanks.

[Nena]

I have a 10 yr old daughter with a bil. cleft lip and palate.
She was very wide open and had no sucking. I know things have
come a long way since 10 years ago, but I had to convert things
to work for her. She was taken off the bottle at 11 months old,
she didn't seem to mind because it was not a soothing thing to
her, just seemed to be a way to get something to drink (maybe
this had to do with the fact that she actually did not suck it ?)
I took a regular sippy cup that was air tight, Tupperware worked
really good, and placed a small pin hole in the lid until it was
big enough to allow her to get the drink out with minimal
suction, but small enough not to drown her. The hole was not very
large, but I gradually increased it until she could get it out.
She had no suction, but just enough to get it out. The hole
provided just enough air to allow her to drink. I continued to
give her formula by this method until my doctor switched her to
milk. I'm sure there are a lot of other modern methods out there
now, but that's what worked for us. Good luck to you.