Pediatric Feeding Therapy serving Colorado Springs, CO
What is Pediatric Feeding Therapy?
Feeding is one of the most complex daily tasks a child learns. It requires coordinated interaction between the brain, nervous system, motor skills, sensory processing, and oral-facial anatomy. Pediatric Feeding Therapy helps infants, toddlers, and children learn how to eat, drink, and comfortably expand their diets.
For babies, feeding therapy focuses on critical early skills such as bottle feeding, nursing efficiency, latching, and transitioning to solids. For older children, therapy helps overcome oral-motor delays, sensory food aversion, and picky eating patterns to make mealtimes a positive experience for the whole family.
Feeding challenges can stem from a variety of causes, including prematurity, tongue or lip ties, sensory processing differences, gastrointestinal issues (like reflux), oral motor weakness, or negative experiences with food and medical procedures.
What Does Feeding Therapy Consist of?
Feeding therapy is tailored to your child’s developmental stage and specific needs using gentle, evidence-based approaches. For infants, therapy focuses on improving oral motor mechanics, latch, suck-swallow-breathe coordination, and positioning. For toddlers and children, therapy often incorporates playful sensory exploration, gradual desensitization to new textures, and targeted oral-motor strengthening.
Therapy focuses on reducing mealtime stress and creating a supportive environment. As a speech-language pathologist specializing in pediatric feeding, Rikki DeGrove collaborates closely with pediatricians, ENTs, pediatric dentists, GI specialists, occupational therapists, and lactation consultants to ensure comprehensive care.
Who Might Need Feeding Therapy?
Infants and children who may benefit from feeding therapy often demonstrate signs such as:
- Difficulty bottle feeding, nursing, or maintaining a secure latch
- Crying, arching, or fussiness during or after meals
- Coughing, choking, gagging, or sputtering while eating or drinking
- Slow weight gain or failure to thrive
- Trouble transitioning to puree foods, chewable solids, or cup drinking
- Restricting diet to very few foods or specific textures ("picky eating" or food aversion)
- Holding food in the cheeks or avoiding chewing
- Excessive drooling or weak lip seal
- Refusal of entire food groups or anxiety around new foods
- Frequent vomiting, reflux, or signs of discomfort during mealtimes
- History of oral ties (tongue/lip tie) affecting feeding function
If your infant or child shows signs of a feeding or swallowing challenge, call Sprout Therapy Services to schedule an evaluation today.