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.
🥪 If they didn’t touch the food in their school lunchbox, try this.
Before you assume they didn’t like what you packed, think about what lunchtime actually looks like at school.
⏰ Kids may have a surprisingly short amount of time to:
Walk to the cafeteria.
Find their lunch.
Open everything.
Eat.
Talk to their friends.
Clean up.
And get back to class.
And here’s the important part...
❤️ Your goal may be to make sure they eat enough to fuel their afternoon.
❤️ Their goal may be to finally get a break and talk to their friends.
Both are good goals!
So instead of only asking, “What should I pack?” I want you to also ask:
“How can I make this lunch easier and faster to eat?”
Here are a few strategies I recommend as a pediatric feeding specialist & mom:
👉🏼 Pack “grab & gab” foods. (This is the strategy have been using for over 20 years and I promise you it makes a difference!)
Cut foods into easy-to-grab pieces they can pop into their mouth while they’re chatting with friends. Think less cutting, peeling, assembling & fussing. I have observed a lot of kids in the cafeteria…and you’d be shocked, how many of them hold an entire sandwich in their hand, turn and talk to the kid next to them, and completely forgot to take a bite!🙈
👉🏼 Choose an easy-open lunchbox.
A Bento-style box can eliminate the time spent opening multiple bags and containers or waiting for an adult to help.
👉🏼 Practice with the actual lunchbox at home.
Have a “lunchbox dinner” occasionally so your child knows exactly how everything opens and where everything is.
👉🏼 Think about the cafeteria routine.
Some schools transport all the lunchboxes together, which means kids have to find theirs before they can even start eating. A bright ribbon or other easy-to-spot identifier can save precious time.
✨ Sometimes the answer isn’t packing a different lunch.
It’s making the lunch you already packed easier to eat in the time they actually have.
🥪 Want to know which lunchboxes, water bottles & lunch accessories I’ve tried, tested & truly love?
👇🏼 Comment BOX and I’ll send you the link to my favorites. (Affilia
⚠️An empty lunchbox coming back from school- that is NOT the goal.
I know. When your kids’ lunchbox comes home empty, it feels like a WIN. 🙌🏼
And when it comes home half-full, it’s easy to think:
🙈They barely ate! What happened?!
But here’s what I want parents to remember…
🍎 School lunch isn’t just about eating.
Kids need enough nourishment to fuel their brains & bodies through the afternoon.
But lunchtime is ALSO a chance to:
💬 Talk with friends
😌 Take a break from the demands of the classroom
❤️ Connect socially
🧠 Reset before heading back to learning
And school lunches can be SHORT.
👉🏼 FOCUS ON - Foods that are cut up, easy to pick up, easy to chew & easy to eat while your child is busy chatting with friends.
Think fewer foods that require lots of opening, assembling, peeling, cutting or managing…and more foods they can simply grab, eat & gab.
Because the goal isn’t:
❌ “Did you eat EVERYTHING I packed?”
It’s:
❤️ “Did you get enough nourishment to fuel your afternoon AND have time to enjoy lunch with your friends?”
SAVE this before you pack tomorrow’s lunch & SEND it to a parent who stresses when that lunchbox comes home with food still in it.
👇🏼 More tips on how to accomplish both next - stay tuned!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, kids lunch, school lunch, picky eater, picky eating, lunchbox ideas, feeding kids, pediatric feeding therapist, school lunch ideas, responsive feeding, kids nutrition
If your kid is STARVING while you’re trying to get dinner on the table…this little trick can be a lifesaver. 🙌🏼
I call it a NIBBLE TRAY.
🧊 Grab an ice cube tray and fill it with tiny morsels your child can nibble while dinner is cooking.
🤫The secret? Make several ahead of time. Choose foods that will stay fresh for 3–4 days, stack the trays in the refrigerator so they help seal each other, then cover the top tray with plastic wrap or foil.
Now, when the “I’M HUNGRY!” hits at 5 PM, you’re ready. But I have a few NIBBLE TRAY RULES:
👉🏼 Parents fill the tray.
This isn’t an open-ended snack buffet. You decide what goes in it.
👉🏼 No seconds.
The goal is to take the edge off hunger, not fill little bellies right before dinner.
👉🏼 Leave about HALF the compartments empty.
As dinner starts coming together, add a few tiny tastes of what you’re preparing.
🫑Maybe it’s ONE little piece of raw bell pepper that you’re slicing for the salad.
🩷A tiny morsel of grilled chicken.
🥔A bite of roasted potato.
And here’s why I especially love this for picky eaters:
❤️ They don’t have to eat those dinner foods.
They simply get a chance to see them and smell them BEFORE they arrive at the dinner table. That tiny preview can make the food feel a little more familiar and the experience at dinner a little less overwhelming.
And because YOU choose what goes in the tray, you can include a combination of familiar foods + little previews of what’s coming.
It’s not about sneaking in nutrition.
It’s about helping your child arrive at dinner hungry, but not HANGRY…and giving unfamiliar foods a gentle introduction along the way.
🥰 📖This is one of the practical strategies from Raising a Healthy Happy Eater, the book I wrote with pediatrician Dr. Nimali Fernando, aka Dr. Yum.
👇🏼 Would a Nibble Tray save that pre-dinner hour at your house? Tell me what you’d put in yours!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, picky eater, picky eating, kids snacks, dinner ideas for kids, family meals, responsive feeding, feeding kids, toddler meals, toddler snacks, hungry not hangry, Raising a Healthy Happy Eater
ARFID MASTERCLASS IN COLORADO!
This ain’t Texas, but I’m teaching on Austin soon too!
Comment COLORADO and I’ll send you the information for both events!
🥰Melanie
Melanie Potock avoidant restrictive food intake disorder / ARFID SLP OT feeding therapy
I’m used to getting questions about picky eating, ARFID, starting solids & feeding kids. But every once in a while, you ask about the random things you spot in the background of my videos.
So… here are the answers to some of your most-asked random questions:
✨ 1. Why is there a BED in your living room?
Yes, there really is! 😂 It’s an antique child’s bed that was once in my daughters’ rooms when they were toddlers. Now I curl up there and read with my grandbaby. ❤️
✨ 2. Why is your kitchen island so tall?
When we built our house, I had the center island made 3 inches taller. I’m REALLY tall, and that extra height makes food prep so much easier on my back!
✨ 3. Is that gorgeous view your backyard?
Sort of! That’s the view from the golf course, just a short walk from my house. 🥰
✨ 4. Do you ever get nervous speaking in front of people?
Honestly? Never. Not once. 😂💕 I really like talking to people.
✨ 5. Where did you get that antique copper pot?
I found it for $10! Definitely one of my luckiest finds.
✨ 6. What’s the story behind the blue cabinet?
This one gets me every time. ❤️
Years ago, a very elderly couple was selling everything before moving into a retirement home. They sat together, holding hands, watching their belongings being sold.
I asked the husband about that little blue cabinet.
He told me he had made it by hand for his wife when they were first married. She used it to store jars of jelly she canned herself.
They were so clearly still in love. ❤️
I bought it on the spot and promised them I would take very good care of it.
Today it holds my collection of French faience pottery, but what I really treasure is the story behind it.
When something is made with love… well, that’s what I love most. ❤️
✨ 7. And that last question?
Animatronic. Definitely animatronic. 😉😂
Okay, your turn. What ELSE have you spotted in the background of my videos that you’ve wondered about? 👀 Drop your random question below!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock / pediatric feeding therapist / picky eating / ARFID / feeding therapy / starting solids / anxious eaters / SLP feeding / behind the scenes
Your family meal doesn’t have to look perfect to matter. 🤍
It doesn’t need matching plates, a home-cooked dinner, or everyone happily eating the same food (although we love that too)!
Because the real value of family meals isn’t what’s on the table.
✨ It’s being together.
❤️A snack on the porch, together.
❤️Breakfast at the counter, together.
❤️Takeout after a long day, together.
❤️Pizza before soccer practice, together.
🤍 Connection matters more than perfection.
Family meals give children repeated opportunities to watch others eat,
participate in conversation, experience different foods without pressure,
and simply feel like they belong at the table.
And for families navigating picky eating or feeding challenges, that last
part is especially important.
Your child doesn’t have to eat everything you serve for a family meal to be
valuable.
Sometimes the win is simply showing up together.❤️
💬 What’s one family meal tradition your kids love? Big or small, share it
below. You might inspire another family!
Melanie 🥰
Melanie Potock, family meals, family mealtime, responsive feeding, picky
eating, feeding development, feeding therapy, mealtime connection, kids and
food, positive mealtimes
Skinny straw or wide straw… which is better for your baby or toddler?
🥤When little ones are learning to drink from a straw, the straw itself can make a difference. In feeding therapy, I often start with a narrow, firm straw because it can help make those first sips easier to manage.
Here’s why 👇🏼
✔️Smaller sips can be easier to coordinate.
✔️A narrower straw may help limit how much liquid enters the mouth at once, giving a new straw drinker more opportunity to coordinate sucking, swallowing & breathing.
✔️Size matters for little mouths.
✔️An extra-wide straw can deliver more liquid than some babies or toddlers are ready to manage. Think about keeping the straw proportionate to your child’s mouth & drinking skills.
✔️Firmness matters, too. If the straw is very soft or collapses easily, drinking can be harder. For beginners, I typically prefer a skinny, firm silicone straw.
⚠️ But here’s the important part: Straw diameter isn’t the only thing that affects flow. The cup, valve, liquid thickness, straw length & how strongly your child sucks can all change how quickly liquid comes through.
😳 If your child is regularly coughing or sputtering while drinking, don’t assume they just need more practice. Try a different straw/cup and talk with your pediatrician or feeding/swallowing specialist if it continues.
👋🏼 I’m Melanie Potock, pediatric feeding therapist with 25+ years of experience helping children learn to eat & drink successfully.
📚 Want more practical feeding tips like this? Comment BOOKS and I’ll send you a link to look inside Raising a Healthy, Happy Eater & my latest book, Responsive Feeding.
💬 What else would you like to know about straws? I’ll be posting more soon, but would love to know your questions!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, straw cup for baby, straw cup for toddler, learning to drink from a straw, baby straw cup, toddler straw cup, feeding therapy, pediatric feeding therapist, cup drinking, feeding skills
🚨 Before you hand your toddler a cracker, try THIS SAFETY CHECK👉🏻That cracker may look toddler-friendly... but does it actually soften with saliva?
✔️One simple check I use as a pediatric feeding therapist is the “melt test.” 💧
Take the cracker and expose it to a little moisture.
👉🏼 Does it quickly soften, break apart & become easy to mash?
Or...
🧱 Does it stay hard, dense & difficult to break down?
🩷Toddlers are still developing the chewing skills needed to safely manage different textures. A cracker that softens easily with saliva may be easier to manage than one that stays hard and requires more advanced chewing skills.
But remember, the melt test is just ONE piece of feeding safety.
✔️ Always supervise your child while eating
✔️ Make sure they are seated appropriately
✔️ Choose foods that match their current chewing skills
✔️ Remember that every child develops feeding skills at their own pace
📌 SAVE this Reel and try the melt test on the crackers in your pantry.
👋🏼I’m Melanie Potock, pediatric feeding therapist & author. After 25+ years in feeding therapy and helping more than 10,000 children, I love giving parents simple ways to better understand how little mouths learn to eat. Thanks for following me!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, toddler choking prevention, cracker melt test, toddler snacks, toddler feeding, feeding safety, choking hazards, chewing skills, pediatric feeding therapist, feeding therapy, toddler food safety
My child WON’T EAT without a screen.”
If that’s your child, please don’t start by taking the screen away. 📱🍽️
✨Start by asking:
What is the screen doing FOR my child?
For some picky eaters, including kids with ARFID or Pediatric Feeding Disorder, a screen may have become the thing that helps them:
❤️ Stay regulated
❤️ Stay at the table
❤️ Tune out overwhelming sensory input
❤️ Manage anxiety around food
❤️ Eat enough to get through the meal
As a parent AND a pediatric feeding therapist, I understand how screens become part of the routine.
Sometimes they solved a very real problem.
But if the goal is eventually eating without a screen, simply removing it doesn’t teach the skills your child may need in its place.
Instead, we may need to build:
✔️ Sensory regulation
✔️ Comfort being present with food
✔️ A sense of safety at the table
✔️ Confidence tolerating something unfamiliar
✔️ Other ways to stay regulated during meals
THEN we can begin fading the screen.
And expect some protest.
When a familiar routine changes, kids may ask for the screen more often, become upset more quickly, or have bigger reactions. Thats the extinction burst 💥
Go slowly. Support regulation. Make the change predictable. And if your child is eating very little without the screen, I would NOT make this a battle. Get individualized feeding support to help you figure out the WHY first.
💜 FEEDING THERAPY CHALLENGE: Before changing anything this week, simply observe:
🤔What job is the screen doing for your child at mealtime?
That answer may tell you where to begin.
📌Save this one if screens have become part of your mealtime routine & share it with a parent or feeding therapist who needs a different way to think about screens at the table.
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, picky eating, screen time at meals, feeding therapy, ARFID, Pediatric Feeding Disorder, mealtime struggles, responsive feeding
❤️ I’m closing comments on this post with so much gratitude for the overwhelming support of its message.
So many professionals showed up here with thoughtfulness, kindness & respect, and I think the message has been heard loud and clear:
We can uphold our professional standards while still treating one another with humanity.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this comment section a reflection of that. ❤️ Here`s the message that we hope you will continue to share by clicking that little airplane on Insta!
Our message: There is a difference between accountability and humiliation.
Professional organizations, like @ashaweb , have processes for investigating ethical concerns, taking disciplinary action, and making certain decisions available to the public.
👉🏻That is accountability.
❌Taking that information to social media for the purpose of ridicule, creating content around someone else’s professional consequences, or piling into the comments with cruel remarks and memes?
That’s something different.
And we need to talk about it.
✨As professionals, we can care deeply about ethics AND refuse to participate in public shaming.
🩵We can disagree with someone’s choices without mocking them.
🩵We can believe consequences are appropriate without turning those consequences into entertainment.
🩵And when we see a comment section becoming cruel, we don’t have to join in.
🔍 Our profession is watching.
Students are watching.
Young clinicians are watching.
And we are teaching them what professional discourse looks like every time we post, comment, share, or hit “like.”
Accountability matters.
So does humanity.❤️
We can hold each other accountable without tearing each other down.
Melanie @mymunchbug_melaniepotock ❤️ Robyn @the_myofunctional_vocologist
❤️Kaitlyn @southernspeechandmyo
❤️Hallie @halliebulkin
Melanie Potock, speech language pathology, SLP, professional ethics, professional conduct, bullying, cyberbullying, social media bullying, public shaming, professional accountability, kindness, healthcare professionals
Sometimes the best thing we can give a child is a fresh pair of eyes.
If your child has been in feeding therapy for months or even years without meaningful progress, that doesn’t automatically mean anyone has done something wrong.
👉🏻But it does mean it may be time to get curious.
A new perspective can reveal something everyone has stopped noticing.
🤔Maybe the goals need to change.
🤔Maybe there’s an underlying barrier that needs another look.
🤔Maybe progress IS happening, but we’ve been measuring the wrong things.
🤔Maybe the child or family needs a break.
🩵And yes…maybe it’s time to try a different therapist.
❤️ Caregivers: It’s okay to ask for another opinion. It’s okay to ask your therapist, “What do you think we’re missing?” And it’s okay to decide that your child might benefit from a different approach or provider. When I worked at a pediatric hospital setting, we rotated clients fairly often – lots of eyes on a kid, lots of perspectives, lots of progress.
❤️ Feeding therapists: We can ask the same questions.
When a child has been on our caseload for a long time, sometimes we’re simply too close to see the whole picture. Consulting with a colleague, referring to another discipline, bringing in another feeding therapist, or even recommending that the family try someone new isn’t failure.
Sometimes that’s exactly what good clinical care looks like.
👉🏻Because the goal isn’t to keep a child in our therapy.
👉🏻The goal is to help that child & family move forward.
And sometimes progress begins when someone new looks at the situation and says:
🤔” I wonder if we’ve thought about it this way…”
A fresh perspective can change the plan. ❤️Bring in that fresh pair of eyes to offer a new perspective and then decide how to move forward.
😘Melanie
Melanie Potock, feeding therapy, pediatric feeding disorder, picky eating, ARFID, feeding therapist, feeding therapy progress, pediatric feeding
SURPRISE, TEXAS FRIENDS! I’m coming to AUSTIN to teach my ARFID MASTERCLASS!
I wasn’t planning another in-person ARFID Masterclass this year...but an opportunity came up that I couldn’t resist. ❤️
So on Sunday morning, December 6th, I’ll be teaching my 4-hour ARFID: The Anxious Eater Masterclass LIVE & IN PERSON in Austin, Texas.
And this one is going to be SMALL for the optimal learning experience:
✨ Just 28 seats
✨ 4 hours of practical ARFID education
✨ In person with me
✨ Plus a complimentary copy of Raising a Healthy, Happy Eater!
And because we’re announcing it now...
EARLY BIRD PRICING is officially open for a short time.
If you’re an SLP, OT or other professional supporting children with ARFID, anxiety & extreme picky eating, I’d love to have you join me.
I’m a pediatric feeding therapist with 25+ years of experience, and I teach nationally & internationally about ARFID & PFD. This Masterclass is designed to give you practical strategies you can take back to your families on Monday morning, with a heavy focus on parent involvement to ensure success.
👇🏼 Comment TEXAS and I’ll send you the registration details.
🙋🏼♀️Only 28 seats means this one really will fill quickly!
❤️Join me for a Sunday morning in Austin!
Melanie ❤️
Melanie Potock, ARFID, ARFID training, ARFID Masterclass, pediatric feeding therapy, feeding therapist, anxious eater, extreme picky eating, pediatric feeding disorder, PFD, SLP, occupational therapist, dietitian, Austin Texas, feeding therapy continuing education
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.
