When to Tackle Weaning Off Pacifiers with Pediatric Feeding Specialist Melanie Potock

Dr. Mary Barbera discusses weaning off pacifiers with Melanie Potock.

Is feeding and mealtime a source of stress for your family? As parents and professionals, we want to see our children and the children we work with happy and healthy, but oftentimes children with autism also present with feeding issues that need to be solved. In this interview with SLP and Feeding Expert, Melanie Potock, we go over some great information and resources for pediatric feeding. 

In this episode, we talk a lot about weaning from the bottle and pacifier. Be sure to check out the linked resources. But what happens when you do wean from the bottle? What cup is best? Traditionally, many parents move right on to a sippy cup, because they think it to be the next step. Melanie shares the science behind oral feeding development and how hard spout sippy cups can hinder the natural development of your child's oral motor skills. There are many things that can contribute to the delay or the natural progression of these skills but avoiding a sippy cup and moving to a cup with a short straw is a big one. Melanie emphasizes the importance of the straw or any cup to not block the movement of the tongue as a function of swallowing. 

You'll Learn:
-When to wean off the pacifier?
-How to wean off the pacifier?
-When should you take away a pacifier?
-How to identify and treat a tongue and lip-tie in your baby?
-Do sippy cups cause speech problems? 
-Why are straw cups good for oral development?
-Do children with autism have feeding issues?

See the show notes to this podcast episode here:

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Dr. Mary Barbera. I fell into the autism world as an autism mom in 1999 when her first-born son, Lucas, was diagnosed with autism. Since then, she became a Board-Certified Behavior Analyst and best-selling author of The Verbal Behavior Approach. Since 2015, she’s created 3 autism online courses based on applied behavior analysis for professionals and "gung-ho" parents. Whether you’re looking for autism parenting strategies, working with development delays in children, or in search of autism help for professionals, I can encourage you to subscribe to the channel and join me on my journey. I’ll be providing weekly autism resources that you don’t want to miss.

[sarasaraksel]

You are just amazing as a mom or as a doctor, i bought your books and start reading little by little, I have 7 years old autistic boy, and Wish i can talk with you because you are a mom with a lot of experience thank you a lot for what you doing

[tingyang]

Thank goodness you confirmed my long-time suspicion -- some many well-meaning people have been telling me, "Only serve them healthy food. If they don't eat it, then take the food away until next meal, then they will be hungry enough to eat it. Instill some discipling in him." No, that absolutely did not work for my kid. Even though he was so hungry, he refused to eat the food I served, then he whined and cried nonstop because he was hungry.

[atufts]

Please do a video on getting children off of sippy cups!

[kavindigamage]

Hi do you think that education in UK good for mild autistic kids, in order to overcome their difficulties

[BMacAttack]

My little girl will ONLY drink milk from a bottle. Anything else she will drink from a sippy cup, regular cup, straw, juice box, etc. She just turned 3.