Happier Mealtimes Start Here

When your child eats only a handful of foods, avoids certain textures, struggles with chewing or swallowing, or becomes overwhelmed at mealtimes, eating can become stressful for the entire family.

At MeBe, feeding therapy starts with understanding why eating is difficult for your child. Our team looks beyond what’s happening at the table to understand the sensory, oral-motor, medical, behavioral, and developmental factors that may be contributing to feeding challenges.

Together, we’ll help your child build the skills and confidence they need to make meaningful progress — while helping your family feel more comfortable around the table.

Email the MeBe Family Success Team about Feeding Therapy

Exploring new foods, one playful bite at a time

Is Feeding Therapy Right for My Child?

Every child’s relationship with food is different. Feeding therapy may help if your child:

Eats a very limited variety of foods
Avoids entire food groups, textures, temperatures, smells, or colors
Becomes anxious or upset around unfamiliar foods
Gags, coughs, pockets food, or has difficulty chewing or swallowing
Refuses foods they previously ate
Struggles to sit at the table or participate in family meals
Has difficulty transitioning to new textures or types of food
Experiences mealtimes that regularly become stressful for your child or family

What looks like “picky eating” may actually be your child’s way of communicating that something about eating is difficult. Understanding what’s behind the challenge helps us determine how best to support them.

Understanding What’s Making Eating Difficult

Feeding is surprisingly complex. Eating involves sensory processing, motor coordination, oral-motor skills, learning, communication, behavior, and physical comfort — all working together.

That’s why MeBe takes a multidisciplinary approach to feeding therapy.

Depending on your child’s needs, Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Pathologists, and Board Certified Behavior Analysts may work together to understand the factors contributing to your child’s feeding challenges and create an individualized plan.

Rather than focusing only on getting your child to eat more foods, we work to understand the underlying skills and experiences that may be making eating difficult.

Feeding Therapy, Tailored to Your Child

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to feeding therapy.

We begin by getting to know your child — what they currently eat, how they respond to different foods, what mealtimes look like at home, and what’s most important to your family.

From there, we create goals around your child’s individual needs. Feeding therapy may include:

Exploring new foods through play and sensory experiences

Becoming more comfortable with unfamiliar foods

Building chewing and oral-motor skills

Gradually expanding food variety and textures

Developing greater independence with eating

Helping parents and caregivers learn strategies they can use at home

Progress doesn’t always begin with taking a bite. For some children, an important first step might be comfortably sitting near a new food, allowing it on their plate, touching it, or bringing it near their mouth.

Those small steps can build toward meaningful, lasting progress.

Research-Informed. Play-Based. Child-Focused.

Experts estimate that feeding disorders affect up to 80% of children with developmental disabilities, which can lead to medical, social, cognitive, and behavioral concerns.

MeBe’s feeding professionals draw from established feeding approaches based on each child’s individual needs, including the S.O.S. Approach to Feeding, Beckman Oral Motor Protocol, Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), sensory-focused strategies, and play-based, child-led approaches.

The goal isn’t to pressure a child into eating. It’s to help them develop the comfort, skills, and confidence that make eating easier — and help families create mealtimes that feel more successful.

Building confidence through play and exploration

Parents Are Part of the Team

Feeding therapy doesn’t stop when a session ends.

Parents and caregivers are an important part of the process. We’ll help you understand what’s contributing to your child’s feeding challenges and give you practical strategies you can use during everyday meals and snacks.

For some families, telehealth feeding therapy may allow our team to work with you right where meals actually happen — at your own table — with an emphasis on parent education, coaching, and strategies that can carry across your child’s daily routines.

Progress Can Start Small — and Grow From There

Success in feeding therapy isn’t measured by whether your child suddenly eats everything on their plate.

It might mean trying a new texture. Sitting comfortably during a family meal. Adding another food to their diet. Learning to chew more effectively. Feeling less anxious when something unfamiliar appears on the table.

Over time, those steps can lead to greater independence, more variety, better mealtime experiences, and less stress for the whole family. Our collaborative teams tackle a wide range of feeding behaviors, including sensory processing issues, oral motor skills, and mealtime behaviors, such as: