Melanie Potock

🤔Do you know how much food to offer your picky eater? I think it might surprise you…

🥄For new foods , keep it underwhelming! A tablespoon at most… and no discussion about eating it.

🤍For favorite foods , start with just a half a cup for school-age kids, and a quarter cup for Littles/Toddlers.

✨Remember, they can have more if more is readily available . And having more is never contingent upon eating another food on the plate. This is about making friends with new foods. If that little tablespoon of a new food just hangs out on the plate, that’s great! Eventually, we’ll get to eating🤍

I’d love to answer your questions in the comments! Ask away!
🥰Melanie
#melaniepotock #slpfeeding #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #ashaigers #feedinglittles #responsivefeeding

#Sponsored 💙 As a #CompleatPartner and a pediatric feeding therapist, I help families take the stress out of family mealtimes. Whether your little one is eating by mouth or via a tube feeding (or both!), remember that the most important part of family mealtimes is FAMILY. 🥰 It’s our time to nurture each other, connect and share stories about our day. ❤️Talk to your healthcare professional to find out if Compleat® is right for your child, and for real-life stories of how families enjoy Compleat® formulas at family mealtimes, visit www.compleat.com/stories.

#MelaniePotock #Compleat #CompleatCrew #TubeFeeding

Got a picky eater? Here’s your first step to more adventurous eating.

👉🏼Follow my "3 S" Strategy: Safe, Sometimes and Someday!

👉🏼Each meal (and ideally snacks too) always includes a highly preferred food (“safe”) plus a “sometimes they eat it” food plus a food that you’re hoping they’ll try “someday”. BUT – here’s the key:

✨Portions are small for safe and sometimes foods Why? If you pile up their plate with a safe food, they will ignore the sometimes foods. Yes, they can have more of anything later, if it’s readily available and convenient to serve more (and that’s not contingent on eating a specific food.)

✨Portions are EXTRA small for “someday” foods. Keep it underwhelming. This increased the likelihood they will explore it, and you’re less likely to waste food. If you can pop it back in the refrigerator like the rainbow cauliflower pictured here, offer it again a few times that week.

✨👉🏼✨CONSISTENCY is the key to this method. It takes time, but exposure to new foods means it needs to be on their plate. I’ll post more soon on when kids refuse to have it on their plate, when they throw it at you (been there) and more, but if you keep “someday” foods underwhelming, they are much more likely to tolerate the food on their plate.

🤍Hey, and truly, thanks for following me. When you SAVE or SHARE, you help my little one-woman small business grow, and I appreciate that so much!

Melanie
BONUS TIP! That @ithacahummus is soooo good! 😋

#melaniepotock #feedingtherapy #slpfeeding #pickyeaters #ashaigers #feedinglittles #responsivefeeding

3 simple tools, 3 simple steps and your baby or toddler is safer chewing and swallowing!

🥰Hi, Melanie here! I’m a feeding specialist with over 25 years of experience helping parents raise healthy, happy eaters!

✨1✨Prep several bags for the entire week, Add crackers, hemps seeds or chia seeds. You’re getting prepped for any day that you might need this hack this week!
✨2✨If you’re using crackers, grab a glass and crush the crackers. You’re going to use that glass in the future too – wait for it…
✨3✨Later that week, when you’re serving any soft, squishable food, like drained fruit from a fruit cup, you’ll be all set! Once the food is coated, you’re going to smash it again with the fork or gently with your glass or your coffee cup – whatever is on hand.

👉🏼You don’t have to smash the seeds, of course, but give them a good shake for even coating and then…you guess it, smash!

🤍This hack makes it so much easier for kids to pick up any soft food, helps them manage slippery foods better in their mouth for safer swallowing, adds a boost of nutrition, adds texture and variety of flavors - and when you prep ahead, it makes your like easier.

📌Share this post or save it – this hack will save you so much time too!

✨🤍✨Melanie

#melaniepotock #slpfeeding #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #pickyeaters #ashaigers #feedinglittles #responsivefeeding #originalidea

👶🏻When babies are first starting solids, they need input from their fingers, the palms of their hands and their lips, tongue and mouth! By allowing them to first play in food, they get feedback from every important nerve running through their hands and eventually, even the nerve endings running down their throat to their belly. That’s how their body learns about taste texture, temperature and more!

♥️Hi! I’m Melanie, here to help you feed babies, toddlers, and big kids! Be sure you’re following me for daily tips!

❓Did you know that learning to eat involves our entire body? Feeding is a developmental process, just like learning to crawl walk run! I think I’ve said that 1 million times in the media, in courses, and to the parents that I help… it’s just so darn true!

✨🤍✨Would you help me out and give this post a ❤️? It’s just me here… no staff, no social media team, no Instagram genies 😉so I truly appreciate your support!

I’m glad I could help this wonderful mom and I’m so glad you’re here to follow along for daily tips!

🥰Melanie

#melaniepotock #slpfeeding #feedingtherapy #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #ashaigers

💃Dips for Toddlers – WHY?

🥰Hi, I’m Melanie, pediatric feeding specialist, here to help you raise adventurous eaters.

✨Introducing dips to your child (especially from a young age) means your kiddo gets more:

✨NUTRITION: Choose dips like hummus, or blend a banana with a nut/seed butter!

✨FLAVOR: Adding a dip means you’re adding flavor, and that means your picky eater just ate a new food! Changing up the flavor as much as possible reduces the risk of picky eating.

✨MOISTURE: Kids need added moisture to safely chew and swallow certain foods. If you’ve got a picky eater, it may be that they don’t yet have the skillset to chew and swallow more challenging foods (like chicken breast) but if they dip it, it’s so much easier to manipulate in their mouth, chew comfortably and swallow safely.

❓Tell me, does your kiddo love to dip? How old are they?

🤍Melanie
#melaniepotock #slpfeeding #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #ashaigers #feedinglittles #responsivefeeding

🦄Sharing my hack to teach your toddler to understand the concept of “swallow”🤍 Does your kiddo know what to do when you say “swallow”?

✨It’s the “full tummy” that makes my technique for teaching toddlers what “swallow” means that makes it so magical…well, that and the 🦄.

✨It’s also a fabulous strategy to help kids learn about hunger and fullness cues! That’s what Responsive Feeding is all about - teaching babies & bigger kids how to pay attention to their internal cues that say “I’m full” or “I’m hungry” and letting them decide how much to eat.

I’m proud to have written the first book of its kind on Responsive Feeding! Endorsed by the AAP, UNICEF & the World Health Organization, Responsive Feeding has been shown to prevent childhood obesity and foster a healthy relationship with food.🥰COMMENT BOOKS for a direct link to all my books on feeding kids!

Tell me, what do you think of that full belly on that unicorn? Kids think it`s so silly and fun!

Melanie
#melaniepotock #feedingtoddlers #pickyeaters #feedinglittles #slpfeeding #originalidea

In feeding therapy, we often treat kids who won’t swallow – they will put food in their mouth, but swallowing? No thank you, unless it’s in a bottle of course! 🍼

🤔Let’s break it down and problem solve…

👋🏼Hi, I’m Melanie, a pediatric feeding specialist working with the pickiest of eaters and kids with pediatric feeding disorders. Thanks for following along here for daily tips!

🥄You might think, well let’s just do Baby Led Weaning or Spoon Feeding! But that’s not the issue – it is SWALLOWING that’s the problem. (See below for medical testing to consider.)

🎥I’ll post a video tomorrow on how to teach an older toddler the CONCEPT of “swallow” but today we are talking about how to bridge the gap between nipple and spoon/self-feeding. Toddlers are more likely to initiate a swallow if they have something to suck from in their mouth. That “something” needs to be silicone, just like the bottle nipple.

💗Once they feel comfortable with that, move to puree on the OUTSIDE of the silicone (ok to still leave some inside too) and then, gradually move to spooning puree, fingers and puree, etc. THEN move to self-feeding and soft solids.

✨THIS hack of mine is for kids with feeding challenges, but it’s ok to try this with your 6 month old too. I would just recommend moving to a silicone feeder that is more narrow, rather than bulbous as shown in this video. I have several on my Amazon shop, just ✨COMMENT AMAZON✨& I’ll zip that link right to your inbox via DM!

❓Questions? Drop them in the comments, I am here to help!
🥰Melanie

Medical Considerations: Collaborating with GI, a swallow study, an ENT and team specializing in airway issues – there are so many challenges to consider when kids don’t seem to want to swallow readily. Always approach with transdisciplinary treatment to rule out underlying medical causes for difficulty swallowing.

#melaniepotock #slpfeeding #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #ashaigers #feedinglittles #responsivefeeding #originalidea

🤔Wondering about the rice in those baby teethers? And do babies really need those anyway?

🙋🏼‍♀️I’ve got some thoughts on the matter. 👋🏼HI! I’m Melanie, a pediatric feeding specialist and author of 6 books on feeding littles & big kids too! Be sure you’re following me for daily tips!

😬Many parents are concerned about the arsenic and heavy metals in rice. While this is a reasonable concern, keep in mind that like any food, we just don’t want to consume MOSTLY rice products. For me, a little bit here and there, especially in the form of a convenient food that babies can benefit from in other ways…that’s where I find the balance.

😘Rice teethers have oral motor benefits, especially for babies who are more hesitant about larger pieces of food in their mouth. They melt easily, feel secure in their little grasp, and aren’t that messy. I can use them as a “carrier food” to introduce other flavors by dipping too! That makes it convenient for on the go and for practicing a little tongue lateralization (moving tongue back and forth), beginner chewing and early tastes. So, I offer them in rotation with hard munchables or meltables like home-made yogurt melts.

🌤️I also like to offer them OCCASIONALLY as a “warm-up” at mealtime, while caregivers are getting the main meal ready. I usually break one in half and that’s plenty! But I don`t avoid them, and I pick a brand that I trust.

✨Hey, did you see the recent @consumerreports article on heavy metals in puffs? One brand that stood out as safer (and rice-free) was @onceuponafarm because they are the recipient of both the Clean Label Project Purity Award and the Clean Label Project Pesticide-Free Certification.

🥰And yes, I am one of their feeding experts. And NO, they did not pay me to say this. In fact, they don’t even know I’m posting this tonight.

❤️My joy is bringing YOU safe and trusted information and I just wanted to share how I feel about that brand…I hope you find it helpful!

😘Hey, thanks for following me…carry on.

💕Melanie
#melaniepotock #onceuponafarm #riceforbabies #feedingtherapy #slpfeeding