4 month old starting solid foods soon- what can I expect?

Children and adults with cleft lip and/or palate issues

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4 month old starting solid foods soon- what can I expect?

Postby mia's mom » Fri Sep 14, 2007 8:50 pm

My daughter Mia will be starting solid foods in about a month or so- just cereal to start with. I don't understand how she'll be able to handle it. She has a really bad cleft palate- she has no palate at all actually, no soft or hard and the cleft starts right behind her gum line (luckily her gums are intact). I;m afraid it will all go up and out her nose. I hate to think that she'll be choking on this or in any kind of distress. Can anyone tell me what i can expect to happen? Thanks, Sandy
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Postby samjune79 » Fri Sep 14, 2007 9:40 pm

When I tried with my son it did come out his nose on the 2nd bite and he cried and would fuss way too much, so I stopped until his palate surgery but he was 6 months old. For now, baby food has no nutritional value it is used to teach baby how to eat and start table manners. It would be just fine to wait until she is willing to learn how to deal with it going in her nose. Also, it you want there is a feeding system by Sassy and it is a special feeder looks like a bottle and it is made to put baby food in it and you can gently push the bottom and the food will come out. Also, my great grandmother has always made baby V8's and fruit smoothies by mixing formula with baby food in the bottle to make it yummy. I haven't let her try that with my son yet b/c I don't want him to think he'll be getting that every bottle. LOL. GL.
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Postby jacksmom » Fri Sep 14, 2007 10:43 pm

Sandy, some Mom's on here had no trouble with solids. I started trying to feed Jackson cereal with a spoon around four months, and and it all came out of his nose. He would get so mad and just scream and scream, so I gave up and tried again around six months....still no luck! It was driving me crazy until I talked to the nutritionist on our cleft team. She told us that lots of cleft babies don't eat solids until after their palate is repaired. Lots of babies are strictly breastfed for the first 12 months, so really it's no different. Formula has more calories than baby food anyway, and helps more with weight gain. I did start thickening all of his bottles with cereal, just so he would feel full. So, I would say to give it a try, but try not to stress too much if she has a hard time. One piece of advice that I got was to make the food thicker and turn the spoon upside down, so that they can use it to help them swallow. Jackson had his palate repaired in April (at nine months) and about a week after surgery he was eating like a PIG! Now he is on all table food and doing great, so all of the worrying was for nothing!!! Now if I could just get him to talk.... :wink:
Good Luck!
Allison
Mom to:
Griffin- 6/22/04
Jackson- 6/29/06 (Bil cleft palate)
www.babysites.com/sites/astand/
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Postby chicka-monkey » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:01 am

We waited until 11 months to feed Skylar because she had problems. It's ok to wait that long if she has problems.
Carrie (user name chicka-monkey)

DD - 6/9/96
DS - 7/6/04
DD - 11/3/05 ~ bilateral cleft lip & palate ~
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Postby Z-Pup » Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:45 am

We tried solids when Zach was about 4-5 months old, he just wasn't ready.

He was ready right after he turned 7 months old. It did come out of his nose, but we just kept a wet cloth near by and kept him cleaned up. It didn't really bother him too much. And once we started solid meals he started sleeping through the night...that was wonderful.

We found that the thicker the food was the better. We started out using just regular Gerber veggies/fruits with added Oatmeal Baby Cereal to get it to the thickness we needed. But then the cereal started to constipate him so I started making his baby food. So that way I could control how thick it was.

It was probably about 9 months when he started on finger food (this is still prior to his palate surgery). He just flat out refused the spoon. LOL

After palate surgery we had to go back on to baby food for 2 weeks, this did okay while he was still sore, but once that was over with he wanted his grilled cheese back! LOL
Lots of Love,

Tia
Zachary 9-21-06 Unilateral Cleft Lip & Palate lovingly called Z-Pup after Daddy, who btw is O-Dawg. :)

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Postby heather » Thu Sep 27, 2007 4:25 pm

My son Eyson has bilateral palate and he took solids just fine at 4 months old. There was some of the food that come out his nose, but he didn't choke on it. They will sneeze to clear their nose. All I can say is try it and see how your baby will do. Some do great and others don't. But remember that all babies are a little unhappy at first when they're fed with a spoon instead of the bottle. Good luck. It will all be just fine. Heather
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Eyson Brentley Van Eycke
Born 11/8/06 UCL BCP
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Postby mookie59 » Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:33 pm

I started Taylor on baby food at about 4-5 months. Of course some came out her nose and while it grossed other people out it never bothered me or Taylor. I just wiped it off and kept on feeding her.

She was on Stage 1 baby food for about a month then I figured out that the thicker baby food worked better so I switched her to Stage 2. She quickly outgrew that & wanted Stage 3 or the Toddler food. She simply could handle the "chunkiness" of that food better.

She's been on table food now for about 2-3 months now and she's 11 months old with 4 teeth.

The thing to do is to start out slowly, offer her foods at her rate (taking in account for watching her for allergies with each new food) and to let her tell you what & when she is ready.

Yes, the food will come out her nose but Taylor has just had her hard palate repair at 10 months and food still comes out her nose. You learn quickly to wipe their nose as frequently as their mouths! :lol:

Good luck with this new step!
Jennifer
Nanny to Taylor (uclbcp)
11/1/06
lip repair - 4 months
soft palate repair - 6 months
hard palate repair - 10 months
fistula repair - scheduled March 14th
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Postby mia's mom » Fri Oct 05, 2007 8:59 pm

Thanks to everyone. I guess I just have to go for it and see what happens. With my son we started him on solids at 5 months so I have a few weeks to go with Mia. She's a tough little thing...I think I'll be more upset about the food up the nose business than she will. Thanks for the encouragement and advice. Sandy
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