A holistic, compassionate, family-focused service for children struggling with food
Does your child struggle to eat a range of foods?
Do you think your child eats enough?
Do you feel stressed and anxious about mealtimes with your child?
Does your child tell you when they are hungry or full?
Do you have to do special or unusual things to help your child eat that parents of other children their age don’t have to do?
Are mealtimes with your child very long or very short? (i.e. less than 5 minutes or more than 30)
Does your child seem distressed or try to avoid mealtimes?
If you are concerned about your child’s eating, you are in the right place- and I’m so glad you found us. For many parents, it is a long, stressful, and complicated journey to find support that is actually helpful and effective. That shouldn’t be the case!
But the good news is, for the families we work with, things start to get easier and lighter once we get started working together. Parents gain clarity and insight about why their child has been struggling with food for so long and start to feel empowered about how they can actually help. And then we can celebrate together when you start to see improvement in your child’s eating and in your family mealtimes.
So…. How can we help you?
Our support starts with an in-depth, multidisciplinary assessment with at least two professionals from our team. Eating is the most complex thing a child has to do and feeding difficulties almost always are a result of numerous underlying issues, so we need several professionals involved to ensure we fully understand your child from multiple different perspectives.
All the professionals on our team are SOS Registered Feeding Therapists, via the Sequential Oral Sensory (SOS) Approach to Feeding, a highly effective, evidenced based intervention with over 30 years of positive results in helping children develop a positive relationship with a range of foods and enjoy mealtimes with their families. We are all multi trained and hold additional professional qualifications as children’s Occupational Therapists, Speech and Language Therapists, teachers and Dysphagia specialists (addressing swallow difficulties).
In your child’s assessment, we will review any medical records or reports and have you complete a parent questionnaire. We will also ask you to share a list of videos of your child eating, playing, moving and interacting with others so we can get to know them and learn about what they love and what they struggle with. We ask for a 3 day food diary and for their growth charts if you have them.
Our team will then analyse all this data and compile a list of clinical concerns or issues which are likely to be affecting your child’s eating. We will make a list of your child’s strengths and interests which we can build on to make feeding therapy meaningful and fun for your child. Building on strengths is the most clinically effective way to make progress – and the most enjoyable way for both parents and children!
You will have a 1-2 hour meeting with our team to discuss the results of your child’s assessment.
We will come up with a five point therapy plan, which you can get started on immediately. We will discuss this plan with you and really collaborate with you to ensure the plan contains things you comfortable with and motivated to carry out with your child. We will also make onward referrals to the NHS or other private services and make recommendations on whether we feel your child is ready to take part in feeding therapy with our team and / or whether parent support would be more beneficial at this stage in their eating development.
Your next steps:
We offer a free 15 minute introductory call to chat with you about the concerns you have about your child’s eating and to answer any questions you may have about our services. We will advise at this stage whether we feel we will be able to help your child or whether other medical or therapy services would be more appropriate for them. Please email Hello@SensoryChildren.co.uk to book a call.
If you’d like to learn more about the SOS Approach to Feeding, please see their website at https://sosapproachtofeeding.com/
For lots of free parent support, signposting and valuable information about the new diagnosis which describes many of the children we work with –Paediatric Feeding Disorder- please see the Feeding Matters charity website at https://www.feedingmatters.org/
If you’d like to develop your background knowledge and develop a greater understanding of feeding issues your child may be experiencing before we work together, you can purchase one of our online parent courses, which explains topics such as:
- Reasons why children don’t eat
- How to help a child who won’t eat
- Creating positive feeding and mealtime experiences
These courses are currently available here:
https://courses.sensorychildren.co.uk/fussy-eating-what-everyone-needs-to-know-part-1
Or you can follow us on our social media accounts @SensoryChildren
We look forward to hearing from you!
My daughter suffers with extreme sensory issues relating to food and tastes and textures. She worked with Sensory Children for around 6 months last year and both Sara and Louisa were amazing to work with. They were so kind to her relating to her eating issues and made her feel heard and understood. She felt at ease with them quickly which doesn’t often happen and she developed a trust in them that she has not had with any other people that have tried to help her with food related problems. They were patient and considerate of her needs whilst also trying to make the feeding sessions fun and creative for her which she loved. They also involved her in the planning of the sessions which made her feel a part of what was happening.
As a parent I thought the whole process was amazing with both Sara and Louisa being very professional but also understanding and kind. My parent feedback sessions with them both were really good and informative and they came up with lots of good plans and strategies for us as a family to use to help my daughter moving forward.
My daughter’s eating has definitely improved since she had her sessions with Sensory children and although she still has issues around texture she is now willing to try lots of things, whereas before she met Sara and Louisa she wouldn’t try new foods at all, preferring to stick with only her handful of safe foods. One of her aims was to be able to eat a roast dinner with the whole family (which she had not been able to do previously) but after her feeding sessions she can now do this with us (minus the vegetables). She also now has homemade juices daily with lots of fruit and some vegetables in, which she would never do before.
I would completely recommend anybody who has a child with sensory problems or feeding issues to speak to Sensory Children as they are brilliant at what they do.
– FL