by Z-Pup » Thu Nov 22, 2007 12:16 pm
Jenna,
Zach was to be off the bottle before his palate surgery in July. I can only assume the reason you are to be off for a month before hand is to give you a dead line with some wiggle room so that you are for certain off the bottle at surgery time.
That being said....Zach had his last bottle 2 hour before his palate surgery, with some Pedilite. He was NOT a fan of the sippy cup. After surgery he wouldn't take the sippy cup. We had surgery on a Wed. and spent the night in the hospital, he was on an IV and getting his fluids. So Wed he got no fluids other than his IV. Thursday morning, I made sure to get enough in him so that we could go home.
Once we were home, I fed him out of a syringe (like the ones they give meds in oraly to our little ones) It was a 10 ml syringe. I'd put him in his high chair and feed him 10 ml at the time to equal 8oz, three times a day. He hated it. But I'd get it in him by any means...because I was not going back into the hospital for dehydration and because he was being stuborn. So from Thurs to Monday night last feeding this is what we did. I waited him out Tuesday morning for his sippy...it took about an hour and he drank it down...right out of the sippy.
We used (and continue to use) the Nuby brand, with the soft spout as he doesn't know how to suck and needs to 'chew' the spout. We started out with the ones with handles. At first I took the spout and cut a hole in it...as in you could literally turn the cup upside down and it would pour out, this is how he drank it for the first week....then I took a top and just cut one side of the 'grill' out so that he had to work a little more to get it...and then finally I gave him a factory made top...
His P/S said he could have his bottle back after two weeks, but I wasn't doing that either....WHY? we worked so hard to get there, there was no way he was getting the bottles back!
All this to say....don't stress about the bottle really...after surgery they don't want ANYTHING...NOTHING....NADA...in there mouth!! And the way I did it worked for us...it was a pain but we survived.
hope that helps a little.
Lots of Love,
Tia
Zachary 9-21-06 Unilateral Cleft Lip & Palate lovingly called Z-Pup after Daddy, who btw is O-Dawg.