Liquid Diet

Since Matteo has had his palate surgery, I've played this awful game with myself of trying to decide what the worst surgery is to have and decided that palate surgery just might be right up there simply because of the liquid diet you're subjected to for at least two weeks (followed by at least a week of a soft food diet).

As uncomfortable as it sounds, a liquid diet is necessary because the cleft repair is not strong enough and chewing food can easily damage it.  The mouth needs time to heal.  Until then, patients can only consume foods that can be swallowed without any chewing.  Children's Hospital of Minnesota has a helpful pamphlet on feeding your child. 
 
Some of the foods we've tried:

• Jello
• Applesuace
• Yogurt made with whole milk
• Baby foods of every flavor, including the ones with the pureed meats
• Whole milk
• Carnation Instant Breakfast drink
• Oatmeal (pureed)
• Eggs (pureed)
• Soup (pureed)
• Tomato soup with crushed crackers
• Beef broth
• Beef broth with baby food added
• Ice cream
• Milk shakes
• Whipped cream
• Pudding
• Mashed potatoes

Matteo quickly (very quickly) grew tired of the traditional "liquid" foods of jello, applesauce, pudding and yogurt.  We bought a bunch of baby food, but he had zero interest in that because the flavors were probably too boring for him.  (Ironically, trying to feed our two-and-a-half-year-old after a cleft palate surgery was the first time we ever bought baby food since we had done Baby Led Weaning with Oliver and Soren.)  We thought maybe he'd like the combination of flavors in those pouches of pureed fruits and vegetables.  Soren and Oliver loved those things.  Nope, Matteo turned his head at that too. 

We finally got him interested in very soupy mashed potatoes.  I bought the instant kind and added whole milk and extra butter to get as many calories as I could in him.  One time I poured in cream.  Once he discovered the potatoes, he started refusing all other foods, including sweet foods.  I think he liked having something warm to eat. When a nurse called from the hospital to check in on Matteo, I'm glad she mentioned that kids tend to find one food they like and stick with it, because I would have otherwise worried that all he was eating was mashed potatoes.

Unfortunately, the mashed potatoes fad didn't last forever.  There were some days when he I honestly don't think Matteo ate more than 300 calories.  He reluctantly ate a couple of those fruit and vegetable squeeze pouches he at first refused to eat.  But at 60-90 calories each, they don't pack much punch.  However, compared with the dairy-laden diet he'd previously consumed, he could benefit from a little fiber, so something good came of it. 

Chris was eating eating a beef stew one night for dinner and while he couldn't give Matteo the big chunks of meat, he gave him some broth to sip and he slurped it down.  We realized that other than the mashed potatoes, Matteo's diet had been devoid of salt and he was probably craving it.  For a few days thereafter, each morning I prepared a pot of beef stock to have on hand for the day.  For meals, I mixed a cup of stock in a bowl with one or two of the baby foods and he gobbled that up.  I also pureed a can of soup I found in the cupboard and he liked that too.  One day he wanted to squirt strawberry-flavored applesauce from one of those pouches into his soup.  I thought there was no way he was going to like it, but he ate it.  I guess it shouldn't matter that I thought it was gross, just as long as he was eating. 

Just as suddenly has Matteo had devoured his "soup," he was done with it.   He also refused any of the other foods he had previously eaten.  I had once tried preparing Carnation Breakfast drink, but he had refused to even try it.  Unlike American kids, Chinese kids are given really hot drinks (formula boiling hot, tea, etc.), so on a whim, I decided to give the Carnation Breakfast drink another try by boiling the milk before adding the mix.  That was the trick! He went through two of those each morning and at over 250 calories for each drink (when using whole milk), he finally finished a breakfast with his tummy full. 

Because it makes no sense why he loves something one day and hates it the next, or vice versa, our strategy has been to keep a lot of different foods on hand, try to ignore all the food we're wasting and just keep trying until something interests him.  Unfortunately, sometimes it's taken all day, or even longer, to stumble upon something he wants to eat, but when we do, it's an awesome sight to watch him happily eat.