Alice's lip repair: the aftermath

Alice remained on staggered doses of liquid paracetomol (2.5ml) and ibuprofen (1.5ml) for a week after the op. It was quite difficult to know when to stop with them, as she did seem to be crying a lot, but whether it was from pain or just general discomfort and unhappiness after her experience was impossible to tell. With hindsight (again!) I think it was partly the painkillers themselves that were upsetting her with their effect on her tiny tummy :(

She continued to do well back on her bottle although didn't take as much in one feed as before. It's only now, nearly four weeks later, that her digestion seems to have settled and she's taking what I'd consider to be a full feed again. In the meantime she developed a serious crying habit and started fussing over every feed. The GP diagnosed colic, but the cleft nurse and I both felt that it was more due to reflux which in turn was causing her to eat less so that she was constantly slightly hungry and grumpy. However, we tried a 'staydown' formula to help combat reflux (Infacol having had no discernible effect) and she hated it, so who knows? Suddenly since this weekend she's been much happier and eating loads and I don't think it's due to anything we've done differently in the end. So frustrating that babies can't just tell you what's wrong!

Appearance wise, it took less than a week for the black eye and all the swelling to go down, although the inside of her nose on the cleft side was still very narrow and completely bunged up with snot and dried blood - but the cleft nurse assured us this was normal. The nose itself returned to a more normal, relaxed shape after a few days although it will never be totally symmetrical. The stitches fell out on their own over the course of about a fortnight and the redness around the scar disappeared too. We were told to wash it once a day with cooled boiled water and apply vaseline four times a day to keep it moist, and after six weeks we need to start massaging with Vitamin E oil/BioOil to help the skin stay supple. Her upper lip has puckered slightly as the scar has pulled together but apparently this will relax again in time; however, it's become slightly raised which is a sign that it's healing TOO well and overdoing the efforts to repair itself, so we have to get some cream from the doctor to halt this process.

This is probably all very boring in its detail but you never know, someone might find it helpful! I know I wanted to know what to expect beforehand, anyway.