Bottle Feeding/Infant Feeding/Early Solids

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If your baby is having trouble with breast or bottle feeding, or as you introduce solid foods, if your baby seems to be a picky eater, a speech language pathologist or occupational therapist can help teach your baby how to eat better.

Many parents worry about their baby’s food intake, whether breast- or bottle-feeding or trying to transition to solids or when they are returning to work and need to implement a new bottle feeding routine. Some breastfed babies will refuse to take a bottle altogether.  It can be a very isolating and frustrating experience. My approach to infant feeding therapy is holistic, examining multiple factors that can influence success, including sensory processing concerns, positioning difficulties, structural/functional barriers such as oral restrictions (lip, tongue or cheek ties) and/or oral-motor skill deficits (like sucking difficulties) that are making feeding problematic. 

As a Speech Pathologist, Myofunctional Therapist and a Certified Lactation Consultant I am able to effectively manage most common breastfeeding issues in addition to examining multiple infant related factors that may be impeding successful feeding.  

The following signs/symptoms may indicate the need for a feeding therapy evaluation:

• Coughing, choking, or gagging during feedings
• Feedings take excessively long (30+ minutes)
• Clicking when sucking or appears to chew the nipple
• Frustration when feeding (i.e. crying, unlatching repeatedly from bottle)
• Spillage from corners of mouth when feeding
• Wide jaw excursions that interrupt the seal on the nipple when sucking
• Poor weight gain

If your baby is bottle fed, the therapist will bottle feed your baby using the tools you provide to gain information about your baby’s feeding skills. For both bottle and breastfed babies who demonstrate difficulties with suck, working on oral motor skills is beneficial to enable them to become more efficient with sucking. During an infant feeding evaluation, I teach oral motor exercises to parents to help to improve sucking. 

If your baby has been referred for therapy after a tongue or lip tie release, I will examine the surgical sites under the lip and/or tongue, providing instructions on necessary aftercare wound management as needed.  An oral examination will be conducted along with observations of breastfeeding, bottle feeding, or solid feeding as applicable to your child. 

I have completed the TOTS: Tethered Oral Tissue Specialty Training, a professional course that educates clinicians on the latest research on treatment of tongue/lip ties, how to evaluate for the presence and impact of tongue and lip ties on function, and on implementation of a treatment plan both before and after a release procedure (frenectomy).  I routinely treat babies after tongue/lip tie release procedures for oral motor/suck training and active wound management to enable feeding success after the procedure.  

For more information on my work with Infant Tongue or Lip Ties, click here.