Feeding
Having a child with feeding difficulties can be overwhelming. Questions you may ask yourself are: Is my child getting enough nutrition? Are they going to struggle to hit growth milestones? Won’t they just eat enough eventually if they are hungry? What am I doing wrong?
What feeding problems can be addressed with intervention?
Kids with a paediatric feeding disorder may not “grow out of it.” We can help develop a structured feeding plan for your child. Feeding therapy can be done for children who :
Are picky eaters or have a limited selection foods they will eat
Struggle to feed themselves
Trouble with sitting at mealtimes
Packing food without chewing properly
Developing a healthy routine around feeding and food is important for all children to help them grow and thrive. Please note, we do not specialize in “failure to thrive” or G-tube or ng-tube fed children and can refer on for these needs.
What will the structured feeding plan look like? How do we get started?
Here is a break down of how we create a unique feeding plan for your child:
The First Steps
Once you have completed your initial consultation, we will proceed by conducting a comprehensive assessment of your child’s current feeding habits. Through forms and parent interviews, we will gather information on:
Current eating habits (what are their struggles, current accepted and refused foods, how often do they eat?)
What your daily meals look like (at home, school, daycare, etc.)
How long have you struggled and how severe are the concerns.
Next, we will schedule a time to observe your child during feeding and track current foods and eating habits with a food log. During this time we will learn about your child’s interests and use positive reinforcement to support your child in their learning. We will then evaluate the information we have collected to create an individualized plan.
Implementing Feeding Therapy
Although each plan will be unique and tailored to each child, our feeding plans will include 1:1 support from our team and parent training. One-on-one support from our team can be done at home, school, or at daycares. During meal time or snack time a member of our team will work with your child to help them achieve their goals and track progress. Our parent training empowers parents by teaching techniques to support positive feeding habits.
At first, feeding interventions may progress slowly as we don’t force a child to eat and instead set up the environment to facilitate success. In some cases, we may need to work on other prerequisite skills before feeding to ensure success of the feeding intervention. Therefore, generally feeding interventions can take between 3-6 months and sustains best when parents continue using the same techniques upon completion of our child's intervention.