The current main opinion, most doctors recommend that the cleft lip be completed at 3-6 months, unilateral cleft lip at 3-4 months, bilateral cleft lip at 6 months, or at least until one and a half years of age in case of occult cleft lip, which can be considered before school age.
Cleft palate needs to be operated before articulation, which is usually around one to one and a half years of age. In particular, the timing of cleft palate surgery has a critical impact on the recovery of speech after surgery. If surgery is performed at the age of 4-5 years as some books or doctors say, then the vast majority of patients will later have a pathological cleft palate voice. In the current opinion, this is not only an uncritical statement, it is simply wrong. This is despite what some plastic surgeons or books still say. That most of them are copying from books and less experienced doctors, who occasionally do one or two cases to books.
Secondary repair surgery for cleft lip is usually done once at age five or six and once at age sixteen or seven.
Alveolar ridge cleft repair surgery is usually done around the age of eight.
Families should pay special attention to the condition of the dentition, and if there is a diastema (that is, the teeth below cover the teeth above, rather than the teeth above covering the teeth below as in a normal person), then orthodontics should be done at the dentist at any time, regardless of size, otherwise jaw development will be affected.