Staging Your Meal
Mealtime staging is an intentional method of food presentation that takes into account 1)
nutrition, 2) efficiency, and 3) skill development in order to optimize each meal to meet the needs of the child in that moment. So, as we wean, we pay good attention to a child’s eating age (calculated based on the time the child became an oral eater), while remembering that oral motor skills develop over time: kids learn to eat by eating.
Grazing is for Sheep…
When children who have been tube fed for a majority of their lives begin the process of weaning off of the tube, it becomes really easy to feed them all day long – because we’re so invested in them eating, and we don’t ever want to tell them that it’s not time to eat.