Cleft Lip and/or Palette

[Pretty Butterfly]

Must cleft bubbas will need the bottle sqeezed for for the first few months...its trial and error!!

Just get into a slow rhythum, and watch that she is actually swallowing. She will soon get used to the feeding technique. A long slow sqeeze usually works best when they are little. Trying to get it out herself will be too tiring just yet.

A plate is used to pull a very wide cleft together over a long peroid of time, and is supposed to help with suction. I dont know of any cleft mum's on line or in my RL group that it actually did help with feeding though. If your doc didn't recommend it, I wouldn't worry.

Good luck hon, oh the joys!!!

[DaintreeDream]

Thankyou for your advice ladies.

I have just fed Matilda using the 'long slow squeeze' teqhnique... she look 100mls, yay! Then she started to get a bit restless, I didn't want to push my luck so the rest was fed through her tube.

She is on 175mls, 4 hourly at the moment, if I can get her up to drinking 150mls then I will put her back to 3 hourly feeds and then hopefully we can get rid of the tube! My aim is to remove the tube by her '5 month' birthday, I have about 5 weeks...

Once again thankyou for your advise her oral amount has doubled just like that.

I will keep you updated on our progress.

Deanne.

[Smx83]

Hi there, just replying to your thread regarding the feeding...

When I used the pigeon cleft palate teat I really struggled with it, Taylor who was newborn got very tired quickly trying to drink, I found it very difficult squeezing the bottle every 2nd or 3rd suck and sometimes she would choke if she was not ready, I could not take her shopping because I knew it would take me ages to get her fed, sometimes it would take up to an hour and a half (would have to stop and feed her again when she regained strength to drink) and so I had to find something else for her to use as the pigeon teat was not working for me (the time factor also was just very inconvenient, especially during early hours of the morning!) and I was just very stressed trying to feed her...

I enquired about the traz chu chu easy feed teat at the Children's Hospital in Randwick after about a month of her struggling and not gaining weight, and for me, this teat was a miracle on Taylor, she adapted extremely well, it looks exactly like a normal teat you see in shops, This teat is made of clear silicon. The flat part of the teat acts as a palate. The infant only needs to apply slight tongue pressure to the teat causing the cross cut to open and milk to flow out. The sides of the teats have been made extremely soft. You can buy these teats from Traz Chu Chu (02)4936 4322 or fax (02)4936 4122.

I have just had a look at the packet that the teat came out of and says it was designed for High Palate, Down Syndrome, Pierre Robin Syndrome, Low Sucking Response as well as Cleft Palate.

I found these teats were great and were less stressful at feeding times!

My email address is smx83@yahoo.com.au if you want to contact me for anything!

Hope this was helpful...

Cheers, Sharon

[Pretty Butterfly]

We've been using the new teat for about 6 months, it's been great!!!

We can get them at all the chemists up here, so have a little look!!!

MM, that is awesome babe!!! She'll be off the tube in no time!!!

When bubbas breast feed, after the initial big let down, they get into a long sucking rythum, and I find copying this was the perfect way to use the bottle. I'm so glad it help your little DD!!!!