Melanie Potock

“I raised three kids and they turned out fine.”
❤️Have you ever found yourself navigating feeding advice from a grandparent, babysitter, neighbor, or well-meaning friend?
The truth is, they probably DID do a wonderful job raising their children.

⚠️But feeding recommendations have changed.

Just like car seats, sleep safety, and medical care have evolved, so has our understanding of how children learn to eat.

Today we know more about:
☑️ Starting solids safely
☑️ Food allergy prevention
☑️ Responsive feeding
☑️ Choking prevention
☑️ Oral motor development
☑️ Sensory learning through food
☑️ Hunger & fullness cues

This isn’t about proving someone wrong.
It’s about helping children benefit from what we’ve learned through research and clinical practice over time.

✨After 25+ years in feeding therapy, one thing I know for sure is that we’re all still learning. I certainly am.

That’s why I created a free handout called Misconceptions About Feeding Solids to help make these conversations easier with grandparents, babysitters, childcare providers, and other loving caregivers. It’s in this week’s newsletter!
And if you’d like a deeper dive into how feeding develops from infancy through childhood, my Feeding Development Course is currently 40% off through June 13.

Inside, you’ll learn from a multidisciplinary team including a pediatrician, psychologist, registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN), and me, with practical strategies you can use right away.

✨ Comment JUNE and I’ll send you the details in my newsletter, plus your 40% discount code. (💗be sure you’re following me, thanks!)

Because at the end of the day, we’re all working toward the same goal:
💜 Helping children develop a healthy, joyful relationship with food.

🥰Melanie
feeding development, starting solids, grandparents, responsive feeding, choking prevention, food allergies, picky eating, toddler feeding, baby feeding, oral motor development, sensory feeding, hunger cues, fullness cues

✨ WHY I DON’T USE A SPIT CUP IN FEEDING THERAPY
🛟Teaching kids how to spit out food is an important safety skill.
⚠️Keeping a spit cup on the table? That’s a different story.

A spit cup becomes a constant visual cue that’s always saying, “Spit your food out here.” But in feeding therapy, I want children focused on chewing, swallowing, and building confidence with food (after I’ve taught them how to spit out food.)

For older toddlers, I teach a different strategy:
👉🏻Keep a cloth napkin on their lap.
👉🏻If a bite feels too big, too tricky, or just isn’t working, they can push it into the napkin.
👉🏻Then the napkin goes right back on their lap.

Why a cloth napkin? (or ideally a baby washcloth, as shown in this video – those are just right!)
✔️ Heavier than paper napkins
✔️ More likely to stay on the lap
✔️ Available when needed but out of sight when it isn’t

Do they do it perfectly every time? Of course not. 🙂Feeding skills take practice.But just like chewing, drinking from a cup, or using utensils, learning how to safely get food out of your mouth is a skill worth teaching.

Note: Some of my clients with motor challenges need a spit cup, because the napkin is too difficult to manage. So, that may be the best option in that situation.

❤️ Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents & therapists help kids find joy in food.

🥰Melanie

feeding therapy toddler feeding picky eating choking prevention feeding development mealtime skills oral motor development toddler tips

🥳One of the biggest success stories in feeding today is happening right before our eyes.

🥚Research shows that childhood egg allergies have dropped by more than 17% following updated infant feeding guidelines that encourage introducing egg earlier in infancy.
🥜Peanut allergies have decreased, too.

This is exactly why feeding recommendations change over time. As researchers learn more, we can make informed decisions that help more children develop safely and thrive.

A few years ago, many parents were told to delay foods like egg and peanut. Today, we know that for most babies, introducing allergens during infancy is an important part of allergy prevention.

❤️Of course, every child is unique, so always talk with your pediatrician about what’s right for your family, especially if your baby has eczema or other allergy concerns.

Want help getting started?
✨ 🗣️Comment HANDOUTS and I’ll send you my FREE allergen introduction handouts in both English and Spanish, with practical guidance for introducing allergens during starting solids and continuing exposure through the toddler years.

🥰Melanie

starting solids, allergen introduction, egg allergy, peanut allergy, baby feeding, infant feeding, food allergies, responsive feeding, baby led weaning, pediatric feeding, toddler nutrition, feeding development
Citation:
Greenhawt M, et al. JAMA Pediatrics, 2025. “This study provides population-level evidence that updated infant feeding guidelines recommending earlier introduction of egg led to measurable reductions in the population prevalence of egg allergy.”

🚨 I found a cherry pit in my frozen cherries…again.
🤦🏼‍♀️And yes, the bag said pitted and I was making the smoothie for a little kid!
Most frozen cherries are processed carefully, but an occasional pit can still sneak through. Personally, I find one pit in almost every large bag.

Especially if you’re making smoothies for babies, toddlers, or young children, it’s worth taking a few extra seconds to check.

🍒 My quick feeding therapy tip:
✔️ Pour the frozen cherries onto a plate and run them under warm water for a few seconds, then drain
✔️ Place a second plate on top
✔️ Press down gently to smash them
✔️ Scan for pits before blending

It takes about 10 seconds and can prevent a very scary choking incident.
Remember, a pit can be dangerous whether your child drinks the smoothie from an open cup or a wide smoothie straw.

After helping families for 25+ years in feeding therapy, I’ve learned that the smallest safety habits often make the biggest difference.

💕 Save this for your next smoothie day & share it with a parent who makes smoothies for their kids.

🥰Melanie
Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents & therapists help kids find joy in food.

smoothie safety, frozen cherries, choking prevention, toddler safety, feeding therapy, baby led feeding, toddler snacks, smoothie straw, feeding specialist, child safety, family nutrition, picky eaters, parent tips 🍒

🍽️ Waiting for the food to arrive can be the hardest part of eating out with toddlers. If you’ve ever found yourself reaching for a screen just to make it through those first 15 minutes, you’re not alone.

Instead, I keep a tiny “restaurant kit” tucked in my purse with a few simple items that can keep little hands busy and curious:
📚 A miniature wipeable book
🍓 A fun food pick for self-feeding
🎩 A tiny toy for silly hide-and-seek games under cups
That’s it.

No batteries. No charging. No volume control. Just connection – isn’t that what mealtimes are all about?

What I love most is that these little activities keep children engaged with the people at the table, the food in front of them, and the experience of eating out together.

Sometimes the simplest tools create the sweetest restaurant memories. ❤️

✨ Comment REST and I’ll send you some of my favorite tools for making restaurant meals with toddlers more enjoyable for everyone.

🥰 Melanie
Restaurant tips • toddler activities • screen-free parenting • eating out with toddlers • family meals • picky eaters • feeding therapy
🥰 Melanie
#melaniepotock #feedingtherapy #slpfeeding

❤️As feeding therapists, it’s easy to get frustrated when we hear advice like, “Let’s wait and see,” or “They’ll eat when they’re hungry enough.”
🤔But here’s something I hope we all remember:

Most pediatricians are seeing far more children each day than any of us could imagine. They’re balancing growth concerns, illnesses, behavior questions, sleep struggles, developmental milestones, insurance limitations, and worried parents, often in appointments that feel way too short. ❤️Instead of criticizing one another, let’s focus on helping families advocate for their children.

Here are 3 ways parents can have more productive conversations with their pediatrician:
1️⃣ Schedule time to talk when your child isn’t in the room.
A phone consult or dedicated appointment allows you to discuss concerns openly without little ears listening to every word.
2️⃣ Be honest about your stress.
Don’t minimize how hard mealtimes have become. Tell your pediatrician exactly what’s happening and specifically request a pediatric feeding evaluation if you believe additional support is needed.
3️⃣ Show, don’t just tell.
For three days, take a quick photo of your child’s plate before and after meals. Be sure to do this privately, without your child present. These photos often tell a much clearer story than trying to remember details during an appointment.
📖 These strategies come from Raising a Healthy Happy Eater, written by feeding specialist Melanie Potock and pediatrician Dr. Nimali Fernando.

⭐ Bonus Tip:
Pediatricians are facing tremendous pressure right now. Insurance requirements, endless paperwork, limited appointment times, and increasing demands can make an already difficult job even harder.
When your pediatrician listens to your concerns, takes a second look, or helps connect your family to resources, don’t underestimate the power of a simple:
💛 “Thank you for helping me advocate for my (this) child.”

✨Because collaboration begins with respect, and kids benefit most when we’re all on the same team.

💡 Comment #BOOKS if you’d like to peek inside the award-winning Raising a Healthy Happy Eater.

Send

🍎 Most kids don’t need apples cut up after the age of 3 ⚠️BUT... they need to learn to use their to get the safest JUST RIGHT BITE.
If your child tends to take giant bites out of apples, pears, or other firm round fruits, OR they just can’t figure out how to bite into ROUND surfaces - this simple feeding therapy trick can make a big difference.

✨ Create a flat edge, then notch to appropriate size bites before offering the fruit. That tiny change gives your child a clear starting point and helps them learn how much food to bite off at one time.

This was my original idea over 25 years ago and I continue to use it to this day because:
🍏 Encourages safer biting skills
🍏 Helps children learn bite-size awareness
🍏 Builds confidence with harder fruits
🍏 Supports independent eating

I still use this trick all the time in feeding therapy with children ages 3+ who are still learning how to manage larger, firmer foods. Feeding is a developmental process. Sometimes the smallest adjustments lead to the biggest breakthroughs.

Want MORE PRACTIAL TIPS like this one?
✨ Comment CLEAN and I’ll send you a 40% discount code for my most popular course, The Feeding Development Course, packed with practical tips like this one to help you raise an adventurous eater. (Code exp 6/13/26 so don’t wait!)

🥰 Melanie
Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents & therapists help kids find joy in food.
apple safety / feeding therapy / toddler feeding / preschool feeding / picky eaters / oral motor skills / self feeding / feeding development / adventurous eaters / parenting tips

🍉❄️ Want a fun summer snack that actually helps build eating skills?
This viral watermelon ice isn’t just fun to eat. As a feeding therapist, I see several reasons it can help children become more adventurous eaters.

🍉 1. It introduces a new sensory experience.
Frozen grated watermelon is more than cold. It’s icy! Children benefit from experiencing a variety of safe textures, flavors, and temperatures. Watermelon ice melts quickly in the mouth, making it a low-pressure way to explore something new.

🥄 2. It’s great practice for spoon skills.
As the watermelon melts, children learn to manage both the ice shavings and the liquid in the bowl. That takes coordination! I love activities like this because they help build skills that transfer to foods like soups, broths, and other spoonable foods.

👉🏼 Coach Mel Tip: Start with just a small amount in the bowl so the liquid barely covers the spoon. This reduces sticky spills and helps children feel successful. A suction bowl can help too!

🧤 3. Older kids can help make it.
The more children participate in food preparation, the more interested they often become in trying foods. Older children can practice kitchen skills by wearing a protective glove and safely grating frozen watermelon into individual bowls.

After helping more than 10,000 children learn to enjoy food, I can tell you that playful food experiences matter.
🗣️ Comment TOOLS and I’ll send you my favorite kitchen tools for kids, including child-sized safety gloves, toddler knives, crinkle cutters, and more! I LOVE a crinkle cutter for serving watermelon – makes each slippery piece so much easier to hold!

🥰 Melanie
Thank you for following me for weekly feeding guidance grounded in 25+ years helping parents & therapists help kids find joy in food.
Watermelon ice / summer snacks / toddler feeding / picky eater tips / feeding therapy / spoon skills / sensory food play / kitchen skills for kids / adventurous eaters / responsive feeding

If you enjoyed watching me drop things, startle babies, and question my life choices while making content... do me a favor. 💕

When friends leave kind comments, drop a ❤️, or share a post when something resonates with you…well…Your comments and hearts genuinely keep me motivated to keep showing up, creating, and sharing feeding tips for families.

Your ❤️ and comments tell that darn algorithm to pay attention to me - and that helps more families find trusted feeding guidance... and reminds me that all the bloopers are worth it. 😅

XOXO ❤️Melanie

Content creator bloopers / behind the scenes / pediatric feeding therapist / speech pathologist / feeding therapist / toddler feeding / picky eating help / parent support / mealtime tips / child development / Coach Mel / feeding expert

Nope! Try serving a small portion of fruit right alongside the meal. WHY?🤔
(First, follow @mymunchbug_melaniepotock for daily tips like this!)

👉🏻Because parents decide what’s available, and children decide whether to eat it and how much.❤️ That means it’s perfectly okay to put a reasonable portion of fruit on the plate and let your child enjoy it.

🤦🏼‍♀️”But what if they eat all the fruit first and ask for more?”
That’s where your job as the parent comes in.

You might simply say:
💬 “The fruit is all gone for now.”
💬 “I’ll bring fruit to the park for snack.”
💬 “For lunch, we have these foods.” (point to the plate)
👉🏻👉🏻Then repeat it once more if needed. After that, it’s okay to stop explaining.
Your child heard you.

When we repeat ourselves over and over, we often end up inviting a debate rather than holding a boundary. Calmly repeating the same message once or twice helps children learn that the answer isn’t changing, while keeping mealtimes more peaceful for everyone.
Just calm, confident boundaries.

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️”But what if they refuse to eat the rest of the meal? “ They will be ok, but they will be hungry again, and soon. That’s the hard part – but try to distract them until the next eating opportunity, and no, I would not offer fruit then.

Children don’t need unlimited access to a favorite food, even one as nutritious as fruit. They need loving structure around food and mealtimes.

In 25+ years of feeding therapy, I’ve found that clear boundaries and low pressure often work better than trying to control the order in which children eat their food. Our job is to decide what, when, and where food is served. Our child’s job is to decide whether to eat and how much.(📖Satter DOR)

🥰 Melanie

Disclaimer: This may not be the best strategy for extreme picky eaters. They need a safe food, if their repertoire is very limited. That’s a whole other situation!
Fruit for kids / responsive feeding / toddler meals / picky eating help / feeding therapy / family meals / parenting boundaries / child nutrition / raising adventurous eaters

🍪 What if dessert wasn’t the prize for eating dinner?

Most of us were raised hearing things like:
“Eat your vegetables first.”🥦
“You can have dessert if you behave.”😳
“Finish your dinner, then you get a treat.”

❤️And while those messages were given with the best intentions, they can accidentally teach children that dessert is more valuable, more exciting, and more desirable than every other food on the table.

Over time, kids may begin to worship dessert.
👉🏻They rush through meals to get it.
👉🏻They negotiate for it.
👉🏻They think about it the entire time they’re eating.

One strategy that can help reduce the power struggle is to occasionally serve a small portion of dessert with the meal.
❌Not every day.
❌Not at every meal.
Just often enough that dessert stops feeling like the grand prize at the end of a competition.

When a child learns that a cookie, brownie bite, or small piece of cake is simply one of many foods available, it often becomes less emotionally charged.

👉🏻The goal isn’t to eliminate dessert.
👉🏻The goal is to help children learn that all foods can fit, and that no single food needs to sit on a pedestal.

In 25+ years of feeding therapy, I’ve found that children often become more relaxed around sweets when we stop making them feel so special.Feeding is a developmental process, and helping children build a healthy relationship with food is just as important as helping them eat their vegetables.
🥰 Melanie

🛟Save this for later & share it with a parent who grew up earning dessert after dinner.
Dessert with dinner / responsive feeding / picky eating / feeding therapy / toddler meals / preschool meals / family meals / raising adventurous eaters / food relationship / child feeding expert

🧀 National Cheese Day & one of my favorite toddler snacks but safety counts too! Did you know that string cheese is actually designed to be pulled into strings?

When serving string cheese to toddlers and preschoolers, I recommend pulling it into thin strands rather than serving the whole stick.

⚠️ Avoid cutting string cheese into coin-shaped rounds. Those round pieces can create a choking hazard because they may block a child’s airway.

Instead:
✔️ Pull it into strings
✔️ Tear it into small pieces
✔️ Continue modifying it this way through about age 4

Why do I love cheese for kids?
🧀 It contains protein to support growth and help keep little tummies satisfied.
🧀 It provides calcium, which helps build strong bones and teeth.
🧀 It comes in many shapes, flavors, and textures, making it a wonderful food for helping children explore variety.

In 25+ years of feeding therapy, I’ve learned that small food-preparation changes can make a big difference in both safety and confidence at the table.
Offer safe foods in safe ways, and let your child build skills one bite at a time.

🥰 Melanie
National Cheese Day / string cheese / toddler snacks / choking prevention / feeding therapy / preschool snacks / child safety / protein for kids / calcium for kids / adventurous eaters