Food ideas for son

[runamyrun]

This summer my 5 year old son (by then he will be 6) will be having surgery. He is getting a bone graft in his mouth. After the surgery, he will not be able to chew food for 6 weeks. And then for two more weeks he can eat small pieces of soft food, that he can only chew with his back teeth. I need ideas of food that he could eat for the first 6 weeks. I have been making a list, but it would be nice to have as many ideas as possible. When he was two, he had his hard palate repaired (part of the roof of his mouth) and he couldn't chew for 2 weeks. That was hard, because I couldn't think of very many foods. Plus, at the time he was a picky eater. My plan is to try any new foods before the surgery, so we can prevent as much frustration as possible. Oh, and he won't be able to run, jump, play, or do anything that could put him at risk of bumping his face--for 8 weeks! If anyone has ideas of calm activities to do, let me know. I plan on doing crafts and reading books, but more ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[5ft Diva]

I'll get my thinking cap on. Wow, what an overwhelming task! I'll let you know when I come up w/ something.

[Dia Minha]

Amy,

I don't know what you already have so a lot of these might be repeats, but when my children had their tonsils out this is what they lived off of for several days;

milk shakes (I used a little ice-cream and lots of fruit),

Jello, (If he won't be able to chew then adding fruit might not be a possibility, but for my kids I packed it with soft fruits),

pudding,

soup (because he won't be able to chew you could do like a creamy potato soup with some other vegtables blended in, I have a recipe if you want it),

applesauce and other blended fruit, (you could buy the canned fruit like peaches or pears that are sweetened in juice and mash them into an "applesauce", I have a baby food masher you could most likely borrow by then, my little one should be on finger foods by then.)

pumpkin pie without the crust (if he is going to have open sores then you will probably need to be leary of spicey foods, DH complained about the pie being to spicey, and hurting his throat after he had his tonsils out)

My kids love slushies and this might be really nice during the summer. If you take a Capri Sun and place it in the freezer until solid then pull it out and place it on the counter for 10 or so minutes then bang it with anything handy (I would just bang it on the edge of the counter) until it is all broken up, it makes a really nice slushy. If you wanted it healthier, like for a meal you could mix some juice and freeze it in an ice tray and then blend it with some fruit in the blender.

Some other ideas I had were:

Any type of squash would blend up nicely with the babyfood masher. In fact, the more I think about it the more I realize that you could probably run just about anything through my baby food masher and it would be good. You could even do pasta, and then soften it with a little liquid or sauce depending on the open sore thing again.

Hot cereal (like Malt-o-Meal or Cream of Rice could be made with milk and cooked to a thinner consistency. This is really good to cook a mashed banana with as well and then you don't even need to add sugar.)

Carnation Breakfast Drinks

Sorry about all the typos and lack of format here. My little ones decided they needed me so I kept getting distracted. If I come up with anything else I will let you know.

Dia

[Big_Sissy]

Wow, that's quite the list

[runamyrun]

Dia, thanks for all of your suggestions. Could I get your potato soup recipe? This will help me a lot!

[Dia Minha]

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this to you. I almost missed it again tonight, because your post was so far down I almost didn't see it.

This is actually a combination of several soup recipes. I just took what it was that I like about each one and mixed the together.

Incredibly Creamy Potato Soup

1cans vegatable broth (you could use chicken it doesn't really matter, I use FF, low sodium)
5-6 potatoes, peeled and cut up
1 medium celery stalk, diced
1 medium onion finely chopped
Any other veggies you like (I have used carrots, brocoli, califlower, zuchinni, yellow squash, peas, corn: not all at once of course, but one or a combo of two, works well.)
1 can FF evaporated milk
Salt and pepper to taste


Boil potatoes, celery, onion, and choice of veggies, in a large pot with vegatable broth. Simmer 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

Pour mixture into blender. Add canned milk to help blender process until smooth. You might have to blend half at a time depending on how many extra veggies you added.

My children loved the broccoli and the califlower, zuchinni and yellow squash, but not the peas, carrots, and corn (I actually did not blend these up, I just added them after blending)

I hope this makes since. I really don't have an exact recipe, I just kind of dump in whatever sounds good. Sometimes I need a little more broth or milk depending on how big the potatoes were and how many extra veggies I added.

Dia