Feeding therapy helps your child to eat and enjoy a wide variety of nutritious foods, to support their growth. This always starts with a comprehensive assessment to explore the reasons for feeding problems. What skills does your child have? What are the barriers to eating? A treatment plan is designed based on current evidence-based strategies and incorporates fun activities into mealtimes.
Eating is a complex task. A professional can provide further support for feeding problems.
Does your child:
- Eat a limited of range of foods (less than 30)
- Refuse whole food groups e.g. proteins, vegetables, fruits
- Refuse whole texture groups e.g. crunchy, soft
- Show challenging behaviours when new foods are presented
- Have difficulty transitioning from purees to solid foods
- Have feeding difficulties associated with ARFID, Autism, and other developmental delays
If you answered yes to any of these questions, contact us to discuss further support.
This will depend on your child’s needs and the skills we work on. Often the honest answer is it will take time to help your child achieve their long-term feeding goals. Learning new behaviours takes practice and patience but change is possible and it is worth it! Our families tell us celebrating the small achievements along the way keeps them motivated. The first time eating a bite of a new food in a restaurant, the first time eating at a friend’s house, the first time asking for a preferred food. All of these successes show progress.
As with learning any new skill, the more practice your child gets, the easier it becomes. From the start of your programme we will work together to setup a programme that fits with your schedule and budget, to ensure consistent practice. We will continually review and assess progress.
You can get in touch by using the contact us form, email or by phone.
If you have any questions about services or anything you have read here, please let us know.
Yes. We can offer advice and support while you wait.
Once you have started seeing the NHS Feeding Specialist Team, we are happy to collaborate with the other therapists, as you wish. You can choose to continue, stop or pause private therapy.