Melanie Potock, MA, CCC-SLP is a mom who once had a picky eater. She’s experienced first-hand the stress that parents feel when they are worried about their child’s nutritional health. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find Melanie blending her knowledge of feeding therapy with practical parenting strategies that help the entire family eat healthier. She’s an international speaker and author of six books, including co-authoring the award-winning Raising a Healthy Happy Eater. Whether you’re raising a child who seems to be on the path to loving all kinds of healthy foods (and you want to keep it that way) or if your child is stuck in the chicken nugget rut, “Coach Mel” is here to guide you.
Melanie Potock
Pediatric Feeding Expert and Author
Expert Feeding Help
for Professionals and Parents
Melanie Potock’s keynotes, courses, books & articles focus on raising kids to be healthy, happy eaters. From babies to toddlers to teens, “Coach Mel” is here to help.
Raising a Healthy Happy Eater Isn’t Always Easy
Get Expert Advice on Feeding Babies, Toddlers & School Age Kids,
Including Extreme Picky Eaters
Upcoming Events & Courses
Babies
This book is designed to answer the most common questions about feeding babies and toddlers up to age three. It also debunks myths while offering practical tips on making mealtimes joyful and less stressful. It teaches a no-nonsense, straightforward approach to responsive feeding that’s focused on nurturing trust and communication between parent and child. Read more about Responsive Feeding here.
Toddlers & Preschoolers
In her award-winning book, Raising a Healthy Happy Eater, Melanie and her co-author, pediatrician Dr. Yum, teach parents how to guide their children on the path to adventurous eating. Parents report that toddlers are the most challenging to feed, thanks to active little bodies and fleeting attention spans. Learn how to lay positive foundations for eating at 6 months of age, navigate the “terrific twos” and avoid picky eating in the preschool years! Get the brand new, updated 2nd edition. Read more about feeding young children here.
School Age
Kids can cook right along with their parents from an early age, but it’s especially important from preschool and into the elementary school years. What’s the number one food group that parents struggle with the most? Vegetables! The secret to helping kids love any kind of food is to follow Melanie’s Three E’s: Expose, Explore, Expand. You’ll learn how to use the Three E’s and create veggie-love in Melanie’s book, Adventures in Veggieland: Help Your Kids Learn to Love Vegetables with 100 Easy Activities and Recipes. Read more about feeding school-age kids here.
More fun!
As a speech language pathologist, Melanie combined her love for language, little kids and food by writing a children’s book! You are Not an Otter: The Story of How Kids Become Adventurous Eaters is available on Kindle, in paperback, and in both English and Spanish. Don’t miss the parent tips in the back of the book! Learn about all of Mel’s books here.
🚨 Before you hand your toddler a cracker, try THIS SAFETY CHECK👉🏻That cracker may look toddler-friendly... but does it actually soften with saliva?
✔️One simple check I use as a pediatric feeding therapist is the “melt test.” 💧
Take the cracker and expose it to a little moisture.
👉🏼 Does it quickly soften, break apart & become easy to mash?
Or...
🧱 Does it stay hard, dense & difficult to break down?
🩷Toddlers are still developing the chewing skills needed to safely manage different textures. A cracker that softens easily with saliva may be easier to manage than one that stays hard and requires more advanced chewing skills.
But remember, the melt test is just ONE piece of feeding safety.
✔️ Always supervise your child while eating
✔️ Make sure they are seated appropriately
✔️ Choose foods that match their current chewing skills
✔️ Remember that every child develops feeding skills at their own pace
📌 SAVE this Reel and try the melt test on the crackers in your pantry.
👋🏼I’m Melanie Potock, pediatric feeding therapist & author. After 25+ years in feeding therapy and helping more than 10,000 children, I love giving parents simple ways to better understand how little mouths learn to eat. Thanks for following me!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, toddler choking prevention, cracker melt test, toddler snacks, toddler feeding, feeding safety, choking hazards, chewing skills, pediatric feeding therapist, feeding therapy, toddler food safety
My child WON’T EAT without a screen.”
If that’s your child, please don’t start by taking the screen away. 📱🍽️
✨Start by asking:
What is the screen doing FOR my child?
For some picky eaters, including kids with ARFID or Pediatric Feeding Disorder, a screen may have become the thing that helps them:
❤️ Stay regulated
❤️ Stay at the table
❤️ Tune out overwhelming sensory input
❤️ Manage anxiety around food
❤️ Eat enough to get through the meal
As a parent AND a pediatric feeding therapist, I understand how screens become part of the routine.
Sometimes they solved a very real problem.
But if the goal is eventually eating without a screen, simply removing it doesn’t teach the skills your child may need in its place.
Instead, we may need to build:
✔️ Sensory regulation
✔️ Comfort being present with food
✔️ A sense of safety at the table
✔️ Confidence tolerating something unfamiliar
✔️ Other ways to stay regulated during meals
THEN we can begin fading the screen.
And expect some protest.
When a familiar routine changes, kids may ask for the screen more often, become upset more quickly, or have bigger reactions. Thats the extinction burst 💥
Go slowly. Support regulation. Make the change predictable. And if your child is eating very little without the screen, I would NOT make this a battle. Get individualized feeding support to help you figure out the WHY first.
💜 FEEDING THERAPY CHALLENGE: Before changing anything this week, simply observe:
🤔What job is the screen doing for your child at mealtime?
That answer may tell you where to begin.
📌Save this one if screens have become part of your mealtime routine & share it with a parent or feeding therapist who needs a different way to think about screens at the table.
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, picky eating, screen time at meals, feeding therapy, ARFID, Pediatric Feeding Disorder, mealtime struggles, responsive feeding
❤️ I’m closing comments on this post with so much gratitude for the overwhelming support of its message.
So many professionals showed up here with thoughtfulness, kindness & respect, and I think the message has been heard loud and clear:
We can uphold our professional standards while still treating one another with humanity.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this comment section a reflection of that. ❤️ Here`s the message that we hope you will continue to share by clicking that little airplane on Insta!
Our message: There is a difference between accountability and humiliation.
Professional organizations, like @ashaweb , have processes for investigating ethical concerns, taking disciplinary action, and making certain decisions available to the public.
👉🏻That is accountability.
❌Taking that information to social media for the purpose of ridicule, creating content around someone else’s professional consequences, or piling into the comments with cruel remarks and memes?
That’s something different.
And we need to talk about it.
✨As professionals, we can care deeply about ethics AND refuse to participate in public shaming.
🩵We can disagree with someone’s choices without mocking them.
🩵We can believe consequences are appropriate without turning those consequences into entertainment.
🩵And when we see a comment section becoming cruel, we don’t have to join in.
🔍 Our profession is watching.
Students are watching.
Young clinicians are watching.
And we are teaching them what professional discourse looks like every time we post, comment, share, or hit “like.”
Accountability matters.
So does humanity.❤️
We can hold each other accountable without tearing each other down.
Melanie @mymunchbug_melaniepotock ❤️ Robyn @the_myofunctional_vocologist
❤️Kaitlyn @southernspeechandmyo
❤️Hallie @halliebulkin
Melanie Potock, speech language pathology, SLP, professional ethics, professional conduct, bullying, cyberbullying, social media bullying, public shaming, professional accountability, kindness, healthcare professionals
Sometimes the best thing we can give a child is a fresh pair of eyes.
If your child has been in feeding therapy for months or even years without meaningful progress, that doesn’t automatically mean anyone has done something wrong.
👉🏻But it does mean it may be time to get curious.
A new perspective can reveal something everyone has stopped noticing.
🤔Maybe the goals need to change.
🤔Maybe there’s an underlying barrier that needs another look.
🤔Maybe progress IS happening, but we’ve been measuring the wrong things.
🤔Maybe the child or family needs a break.
🩵And yes…maybe it’s time to try a different therapist.
❤️ Caregivers: It’s okay to ask for another opinion. It’s okay to ask your therapist, “What do you think we’re missing?” And it’s okay to decide that your child might benefit from a different approach or provider. When I worked at a pediatric hospital setting, we rotated clients fairly often – lots of eyes on a kid, lots of perspectives, lots of progress.
❤️ Feeding therapists: We can ask the same questions.
When a child has been on our caseload for a long time, sometimes we’re simply too close to see the whole picture. Consulting with a colleague, referring to another discipline, bringing in another feeding therapist, or even recommending that the family try someone new isn’t failure.
Sometimes that’s exactly what good clinical care looks like.
👉🏻Because the goal isn’t to keep a child in our therapy.
👉🏻The goal is to help that child & family move forward.
And sometimes progress begins when someone new looks at the situation and says:
🤔” I wonder if we’ve thought about it this way…”
A fresh perspective can change the plan. ❤️Bring in that fresh pair of eyes to offer a new perspective and then decide how to move forward.
😘Melanie
Melanie Potock, feeding therapy, pediatric feeding disorder, picky eating, ARFID, feeding therapist, feeding therapy progress, pediatric feeding
SURPRISE, TEXAS FRIENDS! I’m coming to AUSTIN to teach my ARFID MASTERCLASS!
I wasn’t planning another in-person ARFID Masterclass this year...but an opportunity came up that I couldn’t resist. ❤️
So on Sunday morning, December 6th, I’ll be teaching my 4-hour ARFID: The Anxious Eater Masterclass LIVE & IN PERSON in Austin, Texas.
And this one is going to be SMALL for the optimal learning experience:
✨ Just 28 seats
✨ 4 hours of practical ARFID education
✨ In person with me
✨ Plus a complimentary copy of Raising a Healthy, Happy Eater!
And because we’re announcing it now...
EARLY BIRD PRICING is officially open for a short time.
If you’re an SLP, OT or other professional supporting children with ARFID, anxiety & extreme picky eating, I’d love to have you join me.
I’m a pediatric feeding therapist with 25+ years of experience, and I teach nationally & internationally about ARFID & PFD. This Masterclass is designed to give you practical strategies you can take back to your families on Monday morning, with a heavy focus on parent involvement to ensure success.
👇🏼 Comment TEXAS and I’ll send you the registration details.
🙋🏼♀️Only 28 seats means this one really will fill quickly!
❤️Join me for a Sunday morning in Austin!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, ARFID, ARFID training, ARFID Masterclass, pediatric feeding therapy, feeding therapist, anxious eater, extreme picky eating, pediatric feeding disorder, PFD, SLP, occupational therapist, dietitian, Austin Texas, feeding therapy continuing education
Are we becoming so afraid of shaming parents that we’re afraid to teach best practices?
I keep hearing some version of this from feeding therapists:
❤️ “I don’t want the parent to feel judged.”
❤️ “I don’t want to make them feel like they did something wrong.”
❤️ “I don’t want to cause shame.”
I understand. I don’t want that either.
But parents deserve to know what we know NOW. They deserve current, evidence-based recommendations about bottles, cups, mealtime schedules, appetite, family meals, responsive feeding & feeding development. The goal isn’t to avoid the information.
👉🏻 It’s to get better at HOW we share it.
For example:
❌ “Kids should be off the bottle by about 14 months at the latest” (true, but…)
💕 “We now know that gradually weaning from the bottle around 12 to 14 months supports oral development, appetite & dental health. Let’s make a plan that feels realistic for your family.”
Same recommendation.
Very different experience for the parent.
That’s the skill I want us to keep developing as feeding professionals.
Teach the best practice.
Explain the WHY.
Acknowledge the family’s reality.
Then help them figure out the next doable step.
Because parents don’t need us to withhold helpful information because we’re worried they might feel badly about what happened yesterday.
They need us to help them know what they can do tomorrow. ❤️
Evidence & empathy belong in the same conversation.
💜 Comment SIPPY and I’ll send you my FREE parent handout on transitioning from bottles to straw cups & open cups, with practical tips you can use with families.
📌 SAVE this for the next time you’re wondering how to share a recommendation without creating shame.
↗️ And SHARE it with a feeding therapist who cares deeply about getting both parts right: the evidence AND the delivery.
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, sippy cup, feeding therapist, feeding therapy, parent education, responsive feeding, evidence-based feeding, bottle weaning, straw cup, open cup, sippy cup, pediatric feeding
🚨 Not liking broccoli doesn’t make your child a picky eater.
🤔And honestly? We adults get to have food preferences all the time. Kids do too.
The bigger question isn’t:
❌ “Does my child like this food?”
It’s:
👉🏼 Is this simply a personal preference…or is their list of accepted foods getting smaller and smaller?
A child can dislike broccoli, eggs, chicken, or whatever food everyone else seems to think they should eat, and still have a varied, flexible diet.
What I pay attention to as a pediatric feeding therapist is the bigger picture:
✨ Are they eating foods from a variety of food groups?
✨ Can they tolerate some variety within familiar foods?
✨ Are they gradually learning about new foods?
✨ Or is eating becoming more restricted, stressful or difficult over time?
There’s a difference between “I don’t care for that food” and “I’m struggling to eat.”
❤️ SAVE this carousel for the next time you find yourself wondering, “Is my child just being picky?”👋🏼And SHARE it with a parent who needs permission to let their child have food preferences, too.
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, picky eating, picky eater, food preferences, selective eating, feeding therapy, pediatric feeding therapist, feeding development, ARFID, pediatric feeding disorder
👋🏼If feeding your child feels harder than you thought it would, you’re in the right place. Hi, I’m Melanie Potock, but you may know me as Coach Mel on Instagram. ❤️
I’m a pediatric feeding therapist, speech-language pathologist, author of 6 books & international speaker with 25+ years of experience helping children learn to eat with confidence.
And yes... I’m still terrible at spell check. 🤦🏼♀️😂 This post proves it.
I’ve spent my career helping families understand something I wish every parent knew:
✨ Eating is developmental. Kids learn to eat, just like they learn other skills.
Around here, we talk about the REAL stuff that happens at the table:
🥦 Picky eating & helping kids explore new foods
😟 ARFID, anxiety & feeding challenges
👶 Starting solids & feeding development
🥄 Feeding skills, cups & utensils
❤️ Responsive feeding without pressure
🚨 Choking prevention & feeding safety
🧠 The WHY behind your child’s eating
I’ll share evidence-based strategies, practical ideas you can actually use at home & plenty of reassurance that progress doesn’t have to happen by dinner tonight.
Parents, grandparents, SLPs, OTs, RDs, teachers & other professionals are all welcome here. 🥰
👇🏼 Now I want to know who’s here!
Are you a PARENT or a PROFESSIONAL?
And if you’re a parent, tell me one food your child could happily eat every single day. 😉
I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s help kids become confident, adventurous eaters, one tiny step at a time.
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, pediatric feeding therapist, picky eating, picky eaters, feeding therapy, feeding development, ARFID, responsive feeding, speech language pathologist, SLP, toddler feeding, child feeding, feeding difficulties, adventurous eaters
🥕 Got a picky eater? Don’t underestimate what ONE spoonful can do.
🎃Adding a little pumpkin, squash or sweet potato puree to a familiar food like mac & cheese isn’t just an easy nutrition boost. It’s also a simple way to help your child experience a slightly different flavor in a food they already know.
👋🏼 Hi, I’m Melanie, pediatric feeding therapist & author of Adventures in Veggieland, and I love using small, manageable changes to help kids gradually become more comfortable with variety.
🧡 Canned purees are inexpensive, easy to keep in the pantry & incredibly versatile. Start with just a spoonful in:
✨ Mac & cheese
✨ Pasta sauce
✨ Soups & stews
✨ Chili
✨ Pizza sauce
✨ Pancakes & waffles
✨ Muffins
✨ Sandwich spreads, like cream cheese
And here’s the picky-eating piece I especially love:
👉🏼 You’re gently changing the flavor profile of a familiar food without making it completely unfamiliar.
That tiny change matters - and all three of these purées are pretty equal in terms of nutrition ! Over time, experiencing small differences in flavor, texture & appearance can help kids learn that familiar foods don’t have to be exactly the same every single time.
And no, the goal isn’t to sneak vegetables past your child. When appropriate, let them see what you’re adding & invite them to help stir it in. We’re building familiarity, not fooling them.
❓Would your child notice one spoonful in their mac & cheese? Depends how picky is picky, right? So much to unpack here – let’s talk about it in the comments!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, picky eating, picky eater, feeding therapy, mac and cheese, vegetables for kids, veggie puree, pumpkin puree, sweet potato, squash, food variety, feeding kids, toddler meals
If your picky eater’s progress feels painfully slow…Remember this:
📚 Just like learning to read, learning to eat is a developmental process.
Children build reading skills one step at a time. They listen to stories. They learn sounds. They recognize letters. They put those letters together…and eventually, they read.
Eating develops through little steps too.
🥕Looking at a new food
🥕Tolerating it nearby
🥕Helping prepare it
🥕Touching it
🥕Smelling it
🥕Learning what to expect from it
🥕And eventually, when they’re ready, tasting and eating it
Not every step ends with a bite. But those steps can still be part of learning.
As a pediatric feeding therapist, I want parents to know that we’re not just focused on what a child eats at one meal. We’re helping them develop the skills, confidence & curiosity they need to eat enough to grow and thrive over time.
❤️Growth matters. And so does a healthy relationship with food.
So if dinner tonight looks a whole lot like dinner last night, that’s okay.
Keep creating opportunities to learn. Keep the joy at the table. Keep taking those little steps.
They add up. 💕
Melanie ❤️
📖My co-author Raising a Healthy Happy Eater, Dr. Yum, shared the reading analogy with me. Want a copy of our book? Just comment BOOKS and I’ll send you all the links, currently on sale!
Melanie Potock, picky eating, picky eaters, feeding development, pediatric feeding therapy, feeding skills, toddler meals, mealtime, healthy relationship with food
🐑If you don’t like trekking by sheep, old English manors, ancient churches, babbling brooks and English rose gardens…probably you should stay home.😉 The Cotswolds - where every cottage has a name.🏡
❤️Drop your questions in the comments! I’d love to tell you how to visit The Cotswolds!
Melanie 🥰
A play kitchen at 11 months? Absolutely. 🍳
And two years later, that same kitchen can inspire a whole new level of
play. I’d buy every little kid a play kitchen, if I could!
As a speech, language & feeding therapist, play kitchens are one of my
FAVORITE toys because they grow right along with your child.
They can support:
🍓 language & new vocabulary
🥄 pretend & imaginative play
👩🍳 imitation & social skills
🥕 early exposure to food concepts
💬 back-and-forth communication
The play changes as your child develops, and that’s exactly what makes a
great play kitchen worth having for years.
Want to see my favorites?
Comment KITCHEN and I’ll send you my favorite play kitchens!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, play kitchen, language development, speech
therapy, feeding therapy, pretend play, toddler activities, baby
development, food play
Pediatric Feeding Expert and Author
Melanie's Advice Shared In...
Courses for Parents & Professionals
Melanie offers both on-demand courses and live-streaming Masterclasses. CEUs are optional for both OTs and SLPs, yet audience members include parents, RDs, pediatricians & other health care professionals.
Need help with a picky eater, or just want to prevent kids from falling into the chicken-nugget rut? As a parent, SLP or OT, what do you need to know about child nutrition? What about the anxious eater – Could this be more than just picky eating? Melanie’s on-demand course subscriptions provide the answers!
Want more in-depth instruction in a small group, virtual setting? Register for one of Melanie’s Masterclass!
Explore course options here.
Parenting Advice
Melanie’s advice has been shared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parents Magazine and more. Over 150 articles for both parents and professionals are found here or contact Melanie for a personal one-hour coaching session via video chat.
Masterclass participants get a 25% discount on coaching.
Learn more about professional and parent coaching here.
Keynote Speaking
An international speaker, award-winning author and pediatric feeding specialist, audiences find Melanie’s advice to be practical and possible, even in the most challenging cases. That’s because Melanie is in the trenches, working closely with the most extreme picky eaters and supporting families and health professionals around the world. Melanie has been invited to speak at over 100 different events, including the American Speech Language Hearing Association’s National Conference and the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo.
Audiences say it best: If you are looking for a professional speaker who can “provide practical solutions” for parents, caregivers and therapists and your company needs a “highly knowledgeable, organized presenter” with “energy and enthusiasm” who can deliver a “dynamic course”, then your best choice is Melanie Potock. Contact Melanie here.
Product Consulting
Need expert input on your new parenting product? Melanie has provided expert advice for Orgain, Inc., Holland Health Care, Inc., Healthy Height, Inc., NumNum, LLC and numerous health care and parent product companies.
Looking for an expert to educate your team on how children learn to become adventurous eaters, baby-self feeding or the importance of purees? Feeding is developmental, just like learning to crawl, walk, run. At least 1 in 4 typically developing children have trouble learning to eat! Raising a healthy, happy eater requires the right tools and the right advice. Melanie provides company education and collaboration via webinars, social media and creating educational videos for your audience.
Contact Melanie here.
