feeding therapy for
babies & toddlers
Everyone tells you it's a phase. Sometimes it is. You're the one at the table every night, so you probably already suspect which one you're dealing with.
fussy, or something else?
Almost every toddler goes through a stretch of refusing food. Around 18 months, a child who ate everything at nine months starts turning things down. That alone isn't a problem — it's normal, and it usually passes.
What's worth paying attention to is the shape of it. Typical fussiness wobbles: bad for a fortnight, better the next month, worse when they're tired. A feeding difficulty tends to go one direction only. The list of accepted foods gets shorter, and it doesn't come back.
Usually a phase
Refuses things one week, eats them the next
Still eats across most food groups
Will try something new if there's no pressure
Eats differently at daycare or at Grandma's
Growing along their own curve
Mealtimes are annoying, not distressing
Worth asking about
The list of accepted foods keeps shrinking
Whole textures or food groups are gone
Gagging, retching or vomiting at the table
Same food, same brand, same plate, or nothing
Eats the same restricted way everywhere
Growth or weight has become a question
Mealtimes end in tears — theirs or yours
Still on purées or bottles well past what you expected
why earlier is easier
There's no age at which it's too late, and we work with teenagers. But a two-year-old has had two years of habits and a nine-year-old has had nine.
Refusal entrenches. A child avoids a texture, so it stops appearing at the table, so they never get used to it, so the avoidance hardens. Meanwhile mealtimes get tense, and tension makes eating harder for everyone, which makes the next meal worse.
Getting in early usually means undoing less.
It also means less to unlearn on your side. Most families arrive having tried what they were told to try — hiding vegetables, holding firm, waiting it out. None of that is anyone's fault, and some of it makes things worse.
what we do instead
We never ask for the scary thing. We find something your toddler can already do — touching a food, smelling it — and build from there in steps small enough that they barely notice the ground has moved. Nothing is forced, nothing is hidden, and there's no one-more-bite. Here's how the method works in full.
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We work with children from 12 months. Eighteen months is when parents most often notice eating starting to narrow, but if something is worrying you before that, ask. If anything, early is the easier place to start — there's less habit to undo and the skills we're building underpin everything that comes later.
If mealtimes are distressing, the list of foods is still shrinking, or you're worried about growth, that's reason enough to ask. We'll tell you honestly if we think you don't need us.
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We see your toddler for an hour. You do every other meal that week — so most of the work is yours, and the point of the sessions is to make that work easier rather than harder.
You'll be in the room. You'll know what the next step is, why it's that one and not a bigger one, and what to do when it goes badly. It sometimes goes badly.
Sessions happen at our Kitsilano clinic, in your home, or online. Home is often the right call with toddlers, because the mealtime we're trying to change is the one at your own table.
If you've read this far, it's probably worth a conversation.
