Eating real food

[Kate]

My son is now 8 months old. He had a bilateral incomplete lip
and will have a unilateral hard palate cleft and complete soft
palate cleft repaired this summer. I love that little guy to
death, and I will proudly take the credit for his 9 pound weight
gain since birth. It was a struggle that I am sure many of you
also understand. I never realize how complicated a bottle and the
precisely cut nipple combination can be. Anyway, as the palate
surgery draws near and our son is getting older, HE WON"T
EAT !!! Anything that is good for him, he manages to sneeze right
out of his nose. No need to question that his plastic surgeon did
a good job repairing his lip. He closes them up so tightly, I
couldn't pass a thing through them. Is that on purpose? Why
doesn't he sneeze out the sweet stuff !!! Am I trying the wrong
foods or can the missing palate affect taste too ?

[rmsamalt@midplains.net]

The only advise I have for you...KEEP TRYING and be patient. I
have a daughter that had cleft lip/palate, she is now 6 and goes
to kindergarten. When she was born she weighed 8 pounds 9 ounces.
By the time she was 3 weeks old she had gone down to 7 pounds. It
took feeding her every 2 hours thru the day and night. This
problem of weight gain continued until her palate was repaired.
She also lost alot of food out her nose, we just kept trying
different foods. She liked food from the table best. We almost
always feed her what we ate, she seem to do better. We blended
the food with a hand blender. We made a big deal about her eating
what we were, I think this helped her adapt. It is a long,
sometimes exhausting battle-but so worth it!!!! as I'm sure you
know. It does get easier. If you ever want to correspond-my
e-mail address is rmsamalt@midplains.net. Let me know how your
son is doing. GOOD LUCK!!!!