Feeding Support

Feeding your baby or child is more than just providing nutrients and calories for their growth.

We help babies/children and their parents develop positive associations with mealtime, build confidence, and look forward to eating. After all, food is meant to be enjoyed.

Infant

  • Supporting parents to build their confidence and abilities in breast/chest feeding their baby.

    -latch
    -supply
    -positioning
    -comfort
    -hunger/fullness

  • Supporting parents to build their confidence and abilities in bottle feeding their baby.

    -types of bottles
    -latch and flow
    -positioning
    -comfort
    -hunger/fullness

    • As an Expert Feeding Coaching Calls

    • Individual (1:1) in-person lactation/infant feeding packages

    • Therapeutic services (with an infant-feeding specialized occupational therapist/speech-language pathologist)

Toddler

  • For babies/toddlers who are just beginning to learn about foods

    • Seating

    • Baby-led weaning vs utensils

    • Cups and Drinking

    • Oral skill and safety

  • For babies/toddlers who are showing some signs of concern or avoidance around foods:

    • Sensory exploration

    • Building on success

    • Advancing diets and textures

    • Oral skill and safety

    • As an Expert Feeding Coaching Calls

    • Individual (1:1) in-person infant feeding packages

    • Therapeutic services (with an infant-feeding specialized occupational therapist/speech-language pathologist)

Child

  • For children who are showing some signs of concern or avoidance around foods:

    • Sensory exploration

    • Language around learning new foods

    • Advancing diets, textures, and volume

    • Social eating and positive association

  • For children who have delays or differences in their oral skills for chewing and swallowing

    • Lips, cheek, jaw, and tongue development

    • Advancing food presentation through sequential chewing development

    • Building confidence and learning strategies to protect and support oral challenges

    • Social eating and positive association

    • As an Expert Feeding Coaching Calls

    • Individual (1:1) in-person child feeding packages

    • Therapeutic individual services (with a feeding-specialized occupational therapist/speech-language pathologist)

    • Therapeutic group services (with a feeding-specialized occupational therapist/speech-language pathologist)

Tube-Fed

  • Helping a tube-fed infant/child build confidence and oral skill for feeding readiness

    • Swallowing support

    • Saliva management

    • Chewing skills

  • Introducing a tube-fed infant/child to oral eating (foods and liquids)

    • Health/Medical considerations prioritized

    • Promoting bolus feeds for oral association to foods and hunger/fullness cues

    • Positive associations and cue-based progression

    • As an Expert Feeding Coaching Calls

    • Therapeutic individual services (with a medical-feeding-specialized occupational therapist/speech-language pathologist)

The 4 Integrated Feeding Components

Nutrition

Good nutrition is essential for a child's growth, impacting brain activity, physical development, and overall health; whether a child consumes food orally or through a feeding tube, meeting unique nutritional needs ensures a child’s ability to grow and thrive.

Sensory

Feeding, a highly sensory experience, can be overwhelming for children with differences in sensor processing or sensory integration skills, leading to potential limitations in food variety. A sensory-based feeding hierarchy is employed to gradually introduce new textures and flavors, fostering positive experiences, internal motivation, and confidence in food exploration.

Oral-Motor Skill

Mastering eating skills involves integrating physical abilities such as core stability, fine motor development, and oral motor coordination. Specific oral motor eating skills include coordinating breathing, swallowing, drinking, and chewing.

Social-Relational

Eating is not only a social but also an emotional experience, often linked to cherished moments, and children's challenging mealtime behaviors indicate discomfort or difficulty in some aspect of the feeding experience; caregiver responses play a crucial role, influencing a child's emotional associations and building trust, confidence, and internal motivation for long-term feeding success.

Frequently Asked Questions

    1. Schedule your FREE 20-minute consultation to determine if a comprehensive Feeding Evaluation is warranted.

    2. Schedule your feeding evaluation session. This will be a 90-minute session that will be held in your home.

    3. Have your virtual Results Review with your therapist, who will discuss the evaluation results and recommendations.

    4. If therapy is recommended, the frequency and schedule will be determined at the end of the Results Review. Sessions can begin as soon as the following day (pending availability).

    Typically the timeline from the initial consultation to getting started with sessions is 2-3 weeks.

  • For children who are under 1 year old and/or medically fragile, we offer all in-home sessions for families within our service area.*

    For all children over 1 (and not medically fragile), The Airplane Spoon’s services are provided through our Dual-Home Model.

    Our Dual-Home Model means that sessions are divided between your home and The Airplane Spoon House.


    The division of sessions is on a 3:1 model. This means that for 3 weeks of the month, sessions are held at The Airplane Spoon House and for 1 week of the month, sessions are held at your home.

    *Our service area is within a 10-mile radius of our center in Menlo Park, California. Please check the distance from our location (697 Menlo Ave, Menlo Park, CA 94025) to confirm you are within our service area.

  • Evaluation costs are $550 and treatment sessions are $250.

    We do not bill your insurance. All service fees are processed same-day through our secure payment system with accepted payment methods including FSA, HSA, debit, and credit cards.

    We are considered “out-of-network” providers for your insurance reimbursement policy purposes. A “Superbill” (itemized receipt of services to submit to insurance) is provided after each session, should you choose to submit to your insurance for reimbursement back to you.

    The CPT/insurance code for the evaluation is 92610 and the code for treatment/therapy sessions is 92526.

  • The following concerns might indicate that you child may benefit from feeding therapy:

    -Irritable or upset right before, during, or directly after feeding

    -Frequently coughing, gagging, vomiting, or congested

    -Struggles to control or move liquid/food in the mouth

    -Takes a long time to finish a meal (greater than 45 minutes)

    -Difficulty transitioning (from breast/bottle to solids, from purees to solids, etc.)

    -Highly sensitive to certain food textures, flavors, brands, types

    -Is missing whole food groups entirely

    -Has lost foods previously eaten

    -Extremely limited variety of foods eaten (less than 20)

    -Only eats when in front of a screen

  • Yes! At The Airplane Spoon, parent involvement is not only encouraged, it is expected. This supports the parent-child relationship through trust, fun, and exploration. In addition, by learning the strategies we practice during sessions, families can carry over at home for the child to have more consistency and ongoing opportunities to progress.

  • The sooner the better! Families benefit from early intervention (as young as newborn babies) by being able to better meet their children's needs from an early age to establish strong and functional habits and skills from the beginning for lifelong success.

    More current research shows us that the “wait and see” approach is not recommended, as it promotes an ongoing trend of unsuccessful/incorrect patterns. Brain and behavioral sciences indicate that early support establishes more solid learning habits for a more stable ongoing learning foundation. The longer the delays/disorders are unsupported, the more risk for persistent impairments or ongoing need for intervention.

Infant Feeding Parent Packages

We offer individualized 3-part intensive support packages to help parents learn about how to best feed their babies.

We understand there is a lot of information out there about how to best feed your baby and it can be confusing.
Schedule your virtual 1:1 video package with a licensed and certified infant feeding specialist
and get your specific questions answered with our live classes specifically tailored to your needs!

Infant Breast/Chest

Ages 0-12 months

  1. Latch, swallowing, and how to make sure they’re getting enough

  2. Positioning and motor development

    • Positions for feeding

    • Tummy time, side-lying, sitting, and their importance in feeding success

  3. Equipment

    • Boppy/breastfeeding pillows

    • Pacifiers

Infant Bottle/Combo

Ages 0-12 months

  1. Latch, swallowing, and how to make sure they’re getting enough

  2. Positioning and motor development

    • Positions for feeding

    • Paced bottle feeding

    • Tummy time, side-lying, sitting, and their importance in feeding success

  3. Equipment

    • Bottle types/nipples/sizes

    • Boppy/breastfeeding pillows

    • Pacifiers

Intro to Solids

Ages 5-9 months

Sign of readiness, body positioning, and motor development

  1. Baby-led weaning vs utensils

    • Understanding responsive feeding cues

    • Size of foods for safety

  2. Cups and straws

    • Introducing water

  3. Introducing new foods and sensory exploration

    • Guidelines about mixing foods, flavors, and textures

Continuing Solids

Ages 10-24 months

Sensory exploration, food jobs, and introducing new foods

  1. Body positioning and motor development

    • How crawling, walking, and hand exploration support feeding

  2. Utensils overview

    • Promoting self-feeding through spoons and foks

  3. Cups and straws

    • Water and milk drinking

    • Weaning off of bottle

Next

Communication