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!!!