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.
The team at Let's Eat is passionate about feeding difficulties, we love 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
What is your feeding approach?
At Let’s Eat! we often get asked by parents and professionals about our feeding approach. After working in the industry for 18 years, I have refined and developed our Let’s Eat! approach so that it continues to be evidence based and clinically delivers the feeding outcomes that parents want.
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!
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 always wanted to specialise in this caseload then this is the dream job for you. Essential criteria Relevant
Thank you to all the kids and parents for coming to session 1. Food is hard for so many kids and we are always so honoured to support them and their families in this journey.
Thank you to the Newcastle Uni Speech Pathology students who joined us. We love building paediatric feeding skills and knowledge in soon to graduate SPs!
So glad the weather held out! Fingers crossed it holds out for the rest of the week. 🤞
The group is open to both current clients of Let’s Eat! And anyone else who is interested.
The aim of this group is to create a relaxed environment for your tube-fed child so that they can explore food with friends who are going through the same journey.
This play picnic is also there for parents to connect and share strategies. Tube feeding is tricky and who best to know what you are going through than another parent?
Your child does not have to be 100% oral for this group, they can be in the early stages of food exploration. NGT or PEG fed, continuous or bolus feeds – everyone is welcome (even clients where tube feeding has been raised and parents are keen to meet other families for advice). The goal of this group for your child is building their sensory exploration and curiosity with food – not to “make them eat”.
Contact: Val or Ashleigh (Let’s Eat! emails or FB messenger) or call the office on 4940 6515 and one of us will call you back to discuss if this group is the right fit for your tube-fed child (suggested age 0-5 years old).
Check out the Let’s Eat! Food Wheel which each member of our group will get to take home to support them in continuing to learn about food at home 🏡 🍓🥝 this is a tool we often use in clinic to help our clients and their families look at a food in different ways! It also gives them new words to use to describe the food they are learning about!
We are so excited to work alongside Ability Focus Occupational Therapy for our cooking club next week! Keep an eye out next week for photos of what we will work together to cook!
If you think our cooking club might be useful in supporting your child on their food journey, call us today to be put on our wait list for our next cooking club! 👩🍳🧑🍳🥘
Laura 🫐
Here is how we are keeping you and your family safe in this current climate.
1. All therapists are now triple vaccinated.
2. Clinic rooms will remain with HEPA filters on and therapists will continue to wear face masks and shields/goggles.
3. The waiting room will stay closed so please come round the side driveway at the time of your appointment. If you are early, head to the park or wait in the car please.
4. When you come in, please sign in via QR code, wear your face mask and sanitise your hands. Temperatures will be taken before you head into your clinic room. Siblings are encouraged to head to the park for a play during the session (if possible).
5. Where possible, clinic sessions will occur outdoors so please apply sunscreen and bring hats.
6. Groups will still be going ahead at this stage and we will be running them outside (weather permitting).
7. If you prefer, you can have your child’s session via Telehealth. Please contact your therapist and this will be arranged for you.
8. As always, please don’t attend if anyone is unwell. We will be sending you home if this occurs.
It’s been a crazy 2 years with no clear end in sight but together we can support each other. See you with your child next week.
Val, Ash, Laura, Mel, Felicity and Glynis
Let’s Eat! Feeding Therapy team - 2022
Ps- Leo our “unofficial therapy dog” who has enjoyed a summer in the sun at the beach 😉
Join us in March for our feeding masterclasses. Aimed at beginner therapists keen to build their knowledge in paediatric feeding.
Have a safe and very Merry Christmas
Val and Deb - Feeding Therapy Australia