Founded by Valerie Gent, Let's Eat! Feeding Therapy is a Newcastle based Private Paediatric Feeding intervention service for babies and children from birth to adolescence.
Feeding difficulties in babies and children can be very stressful for parents as well as their child. The goal of Let's Eat! is to empower the family to be able to understand and respond to the feeding difficulties their child may present with. Treatment is clinic based but home and school visits can be arranged with an additional travel fee.
Valerie is passionate about feeding difficulties, she loves working with families in a practical and team focused way.
We look forward to working with you too!
Starting Solids: Keeping safe with Baby-led Weaning
Welcome to part 2 of our “starting solids” blog. In the last post we focused on the more traditional “parent-led weaning” approach. You can check this one out here: Starting solids, parent-led weaning or baby-led weaning? – Let’s Eat! Feeding Therapy. This post will look at a feeding approach
Starting solids, parent-led weaning or baby-led weaning?
There is so much information online about starting your baby on solids which can make it very confusing and challenging to know where to start. Step one is determining whether your baby is ready… The World Health Organisation recommends starting solids by 6 months, but not before 4 months.
Paediatric Feeding Disorders (PFD) – the new diagnostic term..
Paediatric Feeding Disorders and why you may see us using this term in your child’s feeding reports. Up until recently, if you had a child with a feeding difficulty, your health providers may have termed it differently. A Speech Pathologist might have called it “delayed oral motor skills” while
How can I get feeding therapy for my child when I can’t go to a clinic in this COVID-19 telehealth world?
Getting feeding therapy for your child in this COVID-19 climate.
What I don’t recommend doing when you come to eat with your fussy eater…
Today in our Let’s Eat Team meeting, Ashleigh and I talked about fussy eaters and mealtime stress. The phrase of “parents provide and children decide” is commonly used and forms the platform of how we work with families. This phrase was coined by Ellyn Satter in her Division of
Swallowing tablets? Do you or your child have difficulties with it?
Do you know this is a question I often get asked and I know when I worked in acute hospitals, I often got asked by doctors to help patients with their meds. When a cousin recently asked me, I struggled to find a lot of information online and then
Are mealtimes a cause of stress in your household?
Here is my 6 step plan on how to serve it up and hopefully enjoy that family meal. We were all little once and as parents now, we serve up meals on what we know and often how we were served as children. This could be pre-plating and sitting
Practice makes perfect
Practice made perfect is the title of a journal article published in 2008. Although this article is now 12 years old, it is a good one that gives us as therapists and parents important information about how a child learns about a food. In our clinic, we often see
We are looking for a new therapist to join our team!
For the first time ever- this job position is open to a Speech Pathologist OR an Occupational Therapist. The catch is? Your role will be in paediatric feeding only as per our specialist feeding private practice. The upside? If you have loved feeding difficulties / fussy eating and have
What phrases do you struggle with when talking about food in your home?
Baby led weaning - have you considered it as a feeding method for your child? If so, have a read of what foods we recommend, what foods to avoid and a systematic review of the research.
Enjoy!
Ashleigh
https://letseatfeeding.com.au/uncategorized/starting-solids-keeping-safe-with-baby-led-weaning/
This 10 year old with Autism and Anxiety finds food so challenging. His anxiety means that he can’t even engage in conversations about food without shutting down - fight/flight mode!
We’ve spent time just eating preferred foods together, talking about similar foods and inching our way towards his goals.
Then this week - breakthrough! We had a really hard food on the table - carrot sticks and as he was about to pick one up he just paused. Then he looked at mum and I and said “see when I go to do this, my brain just stops.” This is the first time he has been able to articulate these feelings in therapy. After saying what he did, we just chatted about the carrot until his anxiety subsided. Then on his own terms, he just picked it up and took a bite. One bite was enough for him today but what a huge step.
WOW! this is the power of waiting, giving our children time and helping them to find the language to describe how they are feeling. 🥕 🥕 🥕
At Let’s Eat, we see lots of kids who are really anxious about foods and it looks different for all of them - it might be not talking, running away or crying. But we know where there is anxiety, we can help our kids to find their bravery and bravery beats anxiety any day!
Ash
It’s tricky for little kids when meeting a new face so I thought I would tell you a bit about myself.
Prior to becoming a Speech Pathologist, I worked in the hospitality industry with texture food and fluid modification. Some of you may know that this is often done for children or adults with disabilities who have dysphagia (swallowing difficulties). Making food delicious regardless if it’s a purée (for an adult) or thickening it and chilling it so it’s palatable for a child is super important to me. I am excited to work in special needs as a Speech Pathologist now because my work history brings different insights to modified diets.
Fun facts for your child about me...
I have 3 pet chickens at home, Kora, Tweedle-Dee and Bunny. Yes, I have a chicken named Bunny.
And my favourite thing to do is go to Timezone!
Making sessions fun and exciting (while working on the hard and challenging area for your child with feeding) is something I know I strive to do in therapy sessions. When children are having fun, their brains are filled with the happy brain chemicals (serotonin) so hard things like tasting a new food can seem less scary- that’s the theory at least 😉
Here is to laughter and fun while nailing those feeding goals. See you in clinic soon, Laura
