Pigeon Bottles

I posted before about Cash being formula fed, but I failed to mention that he does use a special bottle and nipple.  It's called a pigeon.  The bottle is a little more squeezy than a regular bottle.  The nipple has a hard side and a soft side.  The soft side goes against his tongue and the hard side goes up (it kind of acts as a palate).  It also has a special little plug type piece that sticks in the bottom of the nipple (between the milk and the tip of the nipple).  When you squeeze the nipple it lets milk into nipple, but as soon as you stop squeezing the milk stops.  Dr. Griffiths refers to it as a "bite nipple".  Essentially Cash bites the nipple and gets milk.  When we feed him we have to take the bottle out after a couple gulps, simply because he doesn't really take time to breath when he eats.  We also burp him pretty frequently because he does take in a whole bunch more air than my other babies ever did.  And he eats better if he's sitting up rather than reclining.

I've heard some stories about the way they used to feed babies with a cleft lip, and I'm thankful it's as simple as it is now!