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, 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
32 steps to eating- walking the journey of a fussy eater.
Being a food explorer in Japan was certainly an experience. For the first time, I was able to feel how many of my patients felt. Being presented with new foods, a language barrier and the cultural politeness of at least trying foods rather than refusing presented a new challenge
FOLLOW FOR MORE FUSSY EATING TIPS
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#nutrition #kidsfood #parents #children #kidshealth
Planning.... When school starts, I often find that I’ve baked a few things and I am in a good rhythm. Fast forward 2 weeks and everything has fallen apart!
Fast forward 200 lunchboxes by the end of the year- I’m asking ... Do we have any fresh bread? Is that banana too ripe (ahem it’s dark brown) for school today? That’s what goes on in my house.
So if you’re like me, maybe you need a school lunchbox planner. It will ensure variety in your kids school lunchboxes and help with keeping the “calmness” in your house (with coffee in hand).
Head to our website, scroll down the bottom and subscribe. You will get a free lunchbox planner sent to your inbox and every monthly blog post that we publish will be emailed to you so you never miss out. I don’t write newsletters (who has time to read them!) so it will only be monthly blog posts emailed. Hooray for no email spam!
https://letseatfeeding.com.au/
Have a wonderful weekend and see you next week
Val
What a wonderful year it has been. Thankyou to all of my lovely clients and families who I have met over the last 12 months. You all make coming to work so enjoyable. It’s been lovely to share your successes and work with you through the challenges.
Thankyou to Val - the best boss and mentor I could ask for.
I’ve loved being back in the clinic this week and can’t wait to see you all again in 2021
Ash
What to pack in it?
Whenever I visit schools, I’m a bit stunned by the amounts of packets in rubbish bins. I know it’s convenient to buy mini bags of chips but it’s so much more cost effective and better for the environment if we pack servings of chips, biscuits etc in small lunchbox containers and invest in good quality storage containers that keep the remainder food fresh in our pantry. I know it’s a bit of extra time but truly these school bins are over flowing and the impact on our environment is huge.
As for main lunch, in our clinics, we remind parents that it doesn’t have to be a sandwich. It can be any food - teaching your kids to eat cold leftovers is a bonus.
The Root Cause have a great lunch box website with so many amazing resources. Their sticky chicken drumsticks is a winner in our house. Maybe play around with a few recipes at home with your kids before school starts?
https://therootcause.com.au/5-steps-to-pack-a-healthy-lunchbox/
Hasn’t the beautiful weather this week reminded us how hot our summers can get?
My 3rd tip this week is freezer lunch bags for your lunchboxes. Take your lunchbox of choice and put it in a range of lunch freezer bags to see how they fit. You want enough room for the ice brick to fit (I love the slim line ice bricks from Kmart and Big W) and the zipper to still be easy for your little one to open. Better yet- get your child to open it at the shops to see if they can.
Of course, if you buy a bento box, a lot of them come with their own freezer bags and some even with built in ice bricks spaces in the bag lining (fancy!) but if you are like me and have a few different lunchboxes, you want to ensure your freezer lunch bag fits them all.
Don’t forget to make sure it fits in their bag with enough room for water bottles, hats and leave enough room for papers, books etc from school.
If you see the crazy lady walking through Big W with her ice brick and lunch boxes with bored kids in tow, checking different lunch bag sizes, don’t forget to 👋 hi to me 😉
Have a great ☀️ filled Wednesday!
https://www.bigw.com.au/product/decor-pumped-fresh-cooler-lunch-bag-assorted/p/495518/
