SMALL BITES FEEDING THERAPY
Feeding Therapy
Feeding is a special bonding time for both the child and the caregiver. When this everyday activity is disrupted by a child who has feeding challenges, it often takes a team approach to determine the best plan to meet both the nutritional and emotional components of feeding.
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is natural process, but that doesn't mean that it is always going to be easy. The truth is that breastfeeding is a learned skill for both mumma and baby. Even if this isn't your first baby, each mother and baby pair is unique.
If your baby is fussy and constantly pulling on and off, you have wondered if they have a tongue tie, or are experiencing pain and frustration. We can help.
Bottle Feeding
Bottle refusal is a thing, and it can be very distressing. Before you go and buy every fancy 'boob mimicking' bottle on the market, let us work with you to understand why your baby might be refusing, coughing or pulling away from the bottle and what we can do to help.
In an ideal world every new parent would be shown what is considered 'best practice' for using a bottle (you might be surprised to learn that it doesn't include lying your baby flat in your arm and popping the bottle down into their mouth), but that doesn't happen. We can walk you through the process so that hopefully you never have to experience and overcome a bottler aversion
Transition to Solids
You had no issues with purees and baby was a champion eater but now baby is coughing, gagging, refusing or throwing anything that has lumps in it. We hear this all the time.
We will do a thorough assessment of the structures of your baby's face, mouth and throat and then assess their function while they are eating. This allows us to pin-point why this little one might not be progressing with food textures in a way that we would expect. Having a deep understanding of how we develop our eating skills and where the breakdowns can occur, means we have the best chance of getting your little one back on track to enjoying a wide variety of tastes and textures as they grow.
Why baby led feeding therapy?
1
Child Led
We value your child, their perspective, and what they have to say. Rather than doing therapy to them with dozens of parent led exercises, we follow their interests and always prioritize their independence with feeding activities.
2
Increased Feeding Gains
When babies are active participants in the eating process this increases the amount of the body and brain involved. This allows for increased problem solving, ease of coordination, increased muscular or motor gains, and decreased sensory defensiveness.
3
Less Work Strong Results
By immersing therapy into the daily routines that you are already doing (making meals and eating family meals together) we make it possible for all of our families to carry over the therapeutic interventions that we teach them week to week. This will be done with minimal effort on the part of the parent, as the beauty of baby led feeding therapy is that the baby does all the work.
"Lets just wait and see?"
This is often what new parents here the first few times that they know in their heart that something is not right and raise concerns. It is a common response when your medical provider may not be sure what is wrong or how to support you.
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The problem with waiting is that often these issues compound, feeding becomes more challenging, these challenges start to impact sleep, play, attention, and emotional skills.
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At Small Bites, we LOVE helping babies learn to eat because the smallest adjustments can truly pave the way for an increased long term quality of life. Between 3-12 months of age babies naturally have reflexes to help them learn to eat. A feeding therapist can help you illicit these reflexes to enable feeding to go smoothly. A challenge that takes 2-3 weeks to resolve for an infant can take 6+ months for that same child as a toddler. Are you ready to see what your baby is capable of right now?