Melanie Potock, MA, CCC-SLP is a mom who once had a picky eater. She’s experienced first-hand the stress that parents feel when they are worried about their child’s nutritional health. Fast forward to today, and you’ll find Melanie blending her knowledge of feeding therapy with practical parenting strategies that help the entire family eat healthier. She’s an international speaker and author of six books, including co-authoring the award-winning Raising a Healthy Happy Eater. Whether you’re raising a child who seems to be on the path to loving all kinds of healthy foods (and you want to keep it that way) or if your child is stuck in the chicken nugget rut, “Coach Mel” is here to guide you.
Melanie Potock
Pediatric Feeding Expert and Author
Expert Feeding Help
for Professionals and Parents
Melanie Potock’s keynotes, courses, books & articles focus on raising kids to be healthy, happy eaters. From babies to toddlers to teens, “Coach Mel” is here to help.
Raising a Healthy Happy Eater Isn’t Always Easy
Get Expert Advice on Feeding Babies, Toddlers & School Age Kids,
Including Extreme Picky Eaters
Upcoming Events & Courses
Babies
This book is designed to answer the most common questions about feeding babies and toddlers up to age three. It also debunks myths while offering practical tips on making mealtimes joyful and less stressful. It teaches a no-nonsense, straightforward approach to responsive feeding that’s focused on nurturing trust and communication between parent and child. Read more about Responsive Feeding here.
Toddlers & Preschoolers
In her award-winning book, Raising a Healthy Happy Eater, Melanie and her co-author, pediatrician Dr. Yum, teach parents how to guide their children on the path to adventurous eating. Parents report that toddlers are the most challenging to feed, thanks to active little bodies and fleeting attention spans. Learn how to lay positive foundations for eating at 6 months of age, navigate the “terrific twos” and avoid picky eating in the preschool years! Get the brand new, updated 2nd edition. Read more about feeding young children here.
School Age
Kids can cook right along with their parents from an early age, but it’s especially important from preschool and into the elementary school years. What’s the number one food group that parents struggle with the most? Vegetables! The secret to helping kids love any kind of food is to follow Melanie’s Three E’s: Expose, Explore, Expand. You’ll learn how to use the Three E’s and create veggie-love in Melanie’s book, Adventures in Veggieland: Help Your Kids Learn to Love Vegetables with 100 Easy Activities and Recipes. Read more about feeding school-age kids here.
More fun!
As a speech language pathologist, Melanie combined her love for language, little kids and food by writing a children’s book! You are Not an Otter: The Story of How Kids Become Adventurous Eaters is available on Kindle, in paperback, and in both English and Spanish. Don’t miss the parent tips in the back of the book! Learn about all of Mel’s books here.
✨A long-overdue shift ➡️
From “Failure to Thrive” to “Faltering Weight.” This update from the American Academy of Pediatrics matters more than you might think ❤️
Because words shape how we see kids…
😔And kids were never “failing”
If you’re a parent, therapist, or pediatric provider ➡️THIS is one to save, share, and send to a friend
👉🏼 Comment below and tell me what you think! I’ll send you the resources to learn more too!
Melanie🥰
✨ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years of feeding therapy, helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
faltering weight / failure to thrive / pediatric feeding disorder / PFD / ARFID / feeding therapy / child growth / pediatric nutrition / SLP feeding therapy / occupational therapy feeding / responsive feeding / picky eating help / infant feeding / toddler feeding / feeding development / growth concerns / pediatric dietitian / early intervention
💚The easiest way to get a hesitant eater to try greens? Make it FUN and a little magical.
🐉🍀💚This Green Dragon Smoothie, (based of a recipe we use in feeding group on the @doctoryumproject Food Adventure) is a favorite in my kitchen and in feeding therapy because kids get to add the “secret ingredient” at the end… ✨a small handful of chocolate chips✨They blend into tiny POLKA DOTS, turning this smoothie into something playful, friendly, and way less intimidating. And yes, it’s still packed with nutrition!
💚When kids feel in control and curious, their brains shift out of stress mode and into learning mode. That’s where progress happens.
👉🏼Here’s the recipe from my book, Adventures in Veggieland: Help Your Child Learn to Love Vegetables with 100 Easy Activities and Recipes.
🗣️Comment VEGGIES for the link to look inside the book sent directly to your inbox!
✨1 cup fresh baby spinach, packed
✨¾ cup fresh or frozen pineapple
✨½ cup fresh or frozen green grapes
✨Small chunk frozen or fresh banana
✨½ peeled orange (try freezing it!)
✨Small wedge of lime, rind on, seeds removed
✨Tiny (pea sized) piece of ginger or pinch powdered ginger
✨Ice if you want it extra cold
✨1/8 cup chocolate chips
👉🏼✨Blend everything except the chips until smooth. Add a splash of water if needed.
🪄MAGIC MOMENT: Kids add chocolate chips and blend briefly for polka dots!
Serves 2 adults, or 4 little kids
NOTE: Omit chocolate chips for children under age two
🥰Your kids can help by peeling fruit, adding ingredients, and sprinkling in the “magic”
✨🗣️More playful recipes like this in my latest paperback, with over 50 color photos. Comment VEGGIES for the link!
🤍Melanie
picky eater / toddler nutrition / feeding therapy / kids smoothies / green smoothie kids / hidden vegetables / picky eating help / ARFID support / pediatric feeding / sensory feeding / food play / toddler recipes / healthy kids food / feeding tips / child development / family meals / responsive feeding
A preschooler with ARFID, pediatric feeding disorder (PFD), or feeding anxiety refuses to enter the building for feeding therapy. Parents ask:
“Can we just do therapy in the car for now?”🚗
Short answer: NAY.🙅🏼♀️
❤️But not because parents are wrong for wanting their child to feel comfortable.
✨When a child refuses to enter the building, the challenge is no longer about food. The challenge is safety and confidence in the therapy environment.
Trying new foods sits very high on a child’s learning hierarchy. Walking into the building calmly sits much lower.
😳If we skip that step and move therapy to the parking lot, we unintentionally reinforce the fear. The building stays scary, and the ladder of skills becomes harder to climb.
Instead, we slow down and make the first steps playful.
✔️Practice walking in and out of the doors.
✔️Turn the hallway into a game.
✔️Practice sitting at the table without food first.
🫶🏼Once the environment feels safe, feeding therapy can begin.
✨In feeding therapy, we don’t avoid fear. We scaffold bravery.
💬Comment ARFID and I’ll send you details about my upcoming ARFID Masterclass. There are just 12 seats left.
🥰Melanie
✨ Follow me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years of feeding therapy helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
ARFID support / pediatric feeding disorder / feeding therapy anxiety / feeding therapy refusal / child afraid of therapy / pediatric feeding therapy / picky eater therapy / feeding therapy strategies / child food anxiety / feeding therapy challenges / ARFID treatment / pediatric feeding specialist
I tried. Thanks for the ❤️
😉Melanie
#melaniepotock #feedingtherapy #pickyeaters #startingsolids #slpfeeding
🤔The ONE tip that helps every picky eater?
🥳Make food FUN.
When kids are laughing, playing, and being a little goofy with food, something powerful happens in the brain.
🧠 🤭Laughter releases feel good chemicals like dopamine and endorphins. These help the brain relax, stay curious, and feel safe enough to explore something new.
✨And that matters because anxiety is one of the biggest barriers to trying new foods.
When we turn food into play instead of pressure, we lower the stress for everyone at the table.
For the child.
And honestly, for the parent too.❤️
Sometimes that looks like peas launching out of their pods like tiny rockets. 🚀 In feeding therapy, I do this with toddlers, school age kids, and even tweenagers. And you know what? The older kids often laugh the hardest.😉
Because when food becomes playful instead of threatening, kids start building a relationship with it.
That’s how we make friends with food long before we ask kids to eat it.
🧐Is there more to it? Of course.
Do some kids need more strategies? Frankly yes. They ALL do.
But play is where we start.
❤️Like and save this post as a reminder that play is how all good things begin at the table.
✨ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
🥰Melanie
Melanie Potock / picky eating / picky eater help / feeding therapy tips / pediatric feeding therapy / kids and food / food play for kids / reduce mealtime anxiety / feeding development / sensory feeding / toddler picky eating / help kids try new foods / responsive feeding / feeding therapist advice / kids food exploration / pressure free meals / raising adventurous eaters / feeding therapy strategies / playful learning / food curiosity / child feeding support 🍽️
❤️Fear and food are closer than we think. For families managing food allergies, that fear can shape every meal.
Today I’m going LIVE with therapist, counselor, and allergy parent Tamara Hubbard @foodallergycounselor to talk about the emotional side of food allergies and how families can navigate anxiety while still helping kids build confidence and independence around food.
In our conversation we’ll cover:
✨ How Tamara’s own experience as an allergy parent shaped the way she wrote her book
✨ What Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) looks like in real life for allergy parents
✨ How to keep kids safe without letting fear run the show
✨ What parents in survival mode most need to hear right now
✨ How to help kids gradually take ownership of their allergies as they grow
✨Whether you’re a parent, feeding therapist, or educator, this conversation is about supporting children and families navigating anxiety around food.
💬Comment TAMARA and I’ll send you 3 helpful resources:
Tamara’s book, information about my ARFID Masterclass, and FREE handouts to help you introduce solids and those important allergens safely and with less fear.
🥰Melanie (and Tamara too!)
food allergies / parenting anxiety / food allergy parenting / kids with allergies / pediatric feeding / feeding therapy / anxiety around food / ACT therapy / parenting support / child anxiety / feeding specialist / food safety / raising confident eaters
ARFID: The Anxious Eater is for parents and SLPs, OTs, RDNs and feeding professionals! It’s already 25% SOLD OUT despite announcing these dates for the first time today.🥳
COMMENT ARFID for info sent straight to your DMs 🥰
Melanie
Melanie Potock / ARFID awareness / SLP feeding OT feeding / ASHA CEUs
“You’re an SLP/OT… what do YOU know about nutrition?”🧐
Honestly?
It’s a great question.❤️
As feeding therapists, we need to have foundational knowledge about nutrition. Enough to support growth during feeding therapy, recognize red flags, and collaborate with the medical team.
💪🏼But most importantly, we know when it is time to call in the expert.
That expert is the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.
This carousel only lightly touches on the overlap between feeding therapists and RDNs. In reality, our work intersects often, especially when supporting babies starting solids, picky eaters, and children with feeding differences.
🥳But today I mostly want to say this loudly and clearly:
✨I value RDNs immensely.✨
They are essential members of pediatric feeding teams and help ensure that the children we support are not only learning to eat, but are truly nourished.
Happy National RDN Day to the incredible dietitians who make our work better. 💚
💬🙇♀️Comment RDN and I’ll send you 3 courses taught by RDNs (plus a discount code!) that can help you build the nutrition knowledge you need to support your pediatric clients and refer to an RDN with a truly transdisciplinary mindset.
🥰Melanie
Melanie Potock / pediatric feeding therapy / feeding therapist / pediatric dietitian / registered dietitian nutritionist / feeding team / picky eating help / feeding development / starting solids / pediatric feeding disorder / ARFID / feeding therapy / child nutrition / pediatric SLP / pediatric OT / multidisciplinary feeding team / feeding specialists
You made soup for the family… and you already know your picky eater probably won’t touch it. 🍲
Before you give up, try these three feeding therapy tricks:
1️⃣ Always add fun tools.
A short straw and a tiny spoon instantly make soup more playful and approachable for kids.
2️⃣ Keep the serving underwhelming.
Serve just a little bit of soup in a small cup or tiny bowl.
✨Deconstruct a little too. Pull out AND pat (almost) dry a few noodles, veggies, or pieces of meat so your child can explore the ingredients separately.
⭐️Bonus tip: a tiny espresso cup of broth for sipping is often a big hit.
3️⃣ Freeze the leftovers.
Defrost and offer it again next week.
Because if a child is going to make friends with a new food, that food must keep showing up for play dates. 😊
❤️Melanie
✨ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
picky eater / picky eating / feeding therapy / pediatric feeding therapist / feeding therapist / picky eater tips / toddler eating / kids and food / kids refusing dinner / kids nutrition / raising adventurous eaters / family meals / parenting tips / mom life / dad life / feeding kids / toddler picky eating / kids refusing food / mealtime struggles / feeding therapy strategies
One of the hardest questions parents ask during feeding therapy is this:
“My child isn’t making progress… should we switch therapists?”
❤️Before making that decision, it can help to start with a conversation. Ask your therapist what progress they are seeing, what the current goals are, and what progress might look like over the next few weeks. Sometimes important foundational work in feeding therapy is happening that may not be obvious yet.
And sometimes, it really is about fit.
Feeding therapy is relational work. A child may respond differently to another therapist’s style, pacing, or approach.
Many parents hesitate to change therapists because they worry:😕
“What if the next therapist is worse?”
“What if we lose the progress we’ve made?”
“What if we end up going back to the first therapist?”
Those concerns are completely understandable.
🤝But therapy should feel like a partnership. Honest conversations with your therapist can often clarify the path forward, whether that means continuing together or exploring another option that might be a better match for your child.
🥰Melanie
✨ Thank you for following me @mymunchbug_melaniepotock for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
feeding therapy progress
pediatric feeding therapy
picky eater help
child not eating
feeding therapy for kids
pediatric feeding disorder
ARFID support
parent coaching in feeding therapy
I grew up surrounded by four big brothers. Strong, supportive, protective… yet…
What I didn’t know then was how much my life and career would be shaped by extraordinary women.
💕Women who collaborated with me.
💕Women who mentored me.
💕Women who invited me to speak, learn, and grow.
💕Women who showed up in conference rooms, classrooms, clinics, and kitchens to help families and children thrive.
✨From co-writing Raising a Healthy Happy Eater and co-creating the Dr. Yum Food Adventure with Dr. Yum and an extraordinary team of women…
to learning alongside thousands of brilliant therapists, dietitians, and educators around the world… to being represented by an agency that focuses on influencers that are doing good❤️ and show up on social media with purpose, thus allowing me to align with brands that operate with integrity and truly care about kids…
I’m constantly reminded how powerful it is when women support other women.
And today, I get to watch my two daughters become strong, compassionate women in their own right. That might be the greatest gift of all.🫶🏼
✨Happy International Women’s Day✨ to the women who collaborate, mentor, teach, support, and lift others along the way.
Here’s to women who lift other women…you know who you are, and I’m so grateful for you.💕
🥰Melanie
✨ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
International women’s day / SLP feeding / picky eaters / raising a healthy, happy eater / responsive feeding
5 foods toddlers (and kids) can choke on… unless you prepare them safely.
🤔But there is at least one I want you to skip till age four.
I always tell parents and professionals:
Choking is usually silent.🤐😳
You often won’t hear coughing or gagging. You’ll see distress, but there may be no sound at all.
That’s why preparation matters.
✨Prep these foods up till age 4…yep, age 4. (Some 3 year olds can bite into smaller pieces, but they have the attention span of a , well, a three-year-old, so…)
1. 🥜Whole nuts
Chop very finely. Not chunky pieces like you saw me doing in this video. Tiny pieces are safest.
2. 🍅Round fruits and vegetables
Foods like grapes, cherry tomatoes, and blueberries should be smashed or quartered so they’re no longer round.
3. 🌭Hot dogs
One of the #1 choking hazards for kids.
Cut into long skinny strips first, then finely chop for younger toddlers.
Around age three, thin strips may be appropriate depending on the child.
4. 🌽Corn chips
They break into sharp pieces that are difficult for toddlers to manage.
You could crush them into crumbs… but honestly, it’s easier to skip them until about age four. Oh and corn kernels! Check out my highlights on “corn” for safe prep for 🌽.
5. 🍿Popcorn
Save popcorn for age four and older.
And the first time? Not in a dark movie theater.
😳Remember: choking is silent.
You need to see your child when they are eating.
✨ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents and therapists help kids find joy in food.
❤️Melanie
Melanie Potock picky eater help, toddler choking hazards, baby led feeding safety, toddler food safety tips, feeding therapy tips, safe foods for toddlers, pediatric feeding therapist, toddler mealtime safety
Pediatric Feeding Expert and Author
Melanie's Advice Shared In...
Courses for Parents & Professionals
Melanie offers both on-demand courses and live-streaming Masterclasses. CEUs are optional for both OTs and SLPs, yet audience members include parents, RDs, pediatricians & other health care professionals.
Need help with a picky eater, or just want to prevent kids from falling into the chicken-nugget rut? As a parent, SLP or OT, what do you need to know about child nutrition? What about the anxious eater – Could this be more than just picky eating? Melanie’s on-demand course subscriptions provide the answers!
Want more in-depth instruction in a small group, virtual setting? Register for one of Melanie’s Masterclass!
Explore course options here.
Parenting Advice
Melanie’s advice has been shared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Parents Magazine and more. Over 150 articles for both parents and professionals are found here or contact Melanie for a personal one-hour coaching session via video chat.
Masterclass participants get a 25% discount on coaching.
Learn more about professional and parent coaching here.
Keynote Speaking
An international speaker, award-winning author and pediatric feeding specialist, audiences find Melanie’s advice to be practical and possible, even in the most challenging cases. That’s because Melanie is in the trenches, working closely with the most extreme picky eaters and supporting families and health professionals around the world. Melanie has been invited to speak at over 100 different events, including the American Speech Language Hearing Association’s National Conference and the Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo.
Audiences say it best: If you are looking for a professional speaker who can “provide practical solutions” for parents, caregivers and therapists and your company needs a “highly knowledgeable, organized presenter” with “energy and enthusiasm” who can deliver a “dynamic course”, then your best choice is Melanie Potock. Contact Melanie here.
Product Consulting
Need expert input on your new parenting product? Melanie has provided expert advice for Orgain, Inc., Holland Health Care, Inc., Healthy Height, Inc., NumNum, LLC and numerous health care and parent product companies.
Looking for an expert to educate your team on how children learn to become adventurous eaters, baby-self feeding or the importance of purees? Feeding is developmental, just like learning to crawl, walk, run. At least 1 in 4 typically developing children have trouble learning to eat! Raising a healthy, happy eater requires the right tools and the right advice. Melanie provides company education and collaboration via webinars, social media and creating educational videos for your audience.
Contact Melanie here.
Blog
feeding advice for parents and professionals
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