Pediatric feeding disorders can involve difficulty with sucking, chewing, swallowing (dysphagia), limited food acceptance, or the transition from bottle or tube feeding to age-appropriate eating.
What We Look For
Feeding difficulties can show up at any age and in different forms — infants who struggle to latch or coordinate a bottle, toddlers who react strongly to certain textures or food groups, or children who aren't gaining weight as expected. Some of our therapists have additional training in lactation, which lets us assess not just latch and intake but the full swallow when breastfeeding isn't going as expected.
Picky eating is common, but chronic, severe food selectivity — refusing entire food groups, or reacting to new foods with real distress — is different from an ordinary phase, and it's worth a full evaluation rather than waiting for a child to grow out of it. The same is true for feeding aversions, formula intolerance, and slow weight gain: each has an underlying cause, and identifying it is the first step toward a workable plan.
Signs that warrant a closer look include a poor latch, difficulty transitioning to solid foods, oral aversions or strong sensory reactions to food, fear or anxiety around mealtimes, recurring vomiting, or a child consistently avoiding social eating situations. None of these on their own mean something is wrong — but together, or persisting past the age they're expected to resolve, they're worth an evaluation.
How We Approach It
Feeding is movement — oral motor coordination, sensory processing, and airway all interact. Our evaluations look beyond "picky eating" labels to identify which underlying system is limiting progress, whether oral motor, sensory, medical, or behavioral, and build a plan around that child's specific barriers.