Nutritional Assessment & Understanding

Our assessment process is thorough, collaborative, and aims to look at the full picture of your child's feeding experience. This is a deep dive into understanding your unique child.

Detailed Medical & Developmental History

• Birth and early feeding history: Pregnancy, delivery, NICU stay, early feeding experiences, and any medical complications

• Medical conditions: Diagnoses, medications, surgeries, hospitalisations, allergies, reflux, constipation, nutritional deficiencies and how they impact feeding

• Developmental milestones: Motor skills, speech development, and overall developmental trajectory

• Growth patterns: Weight, height, and head circumference trends over time

• Appetite patterns: Hunger cues, satiety, and food-related comfort or discomfort

• Sensory processing patterns: How your child responds to different tastes, textures, temperatures, and smells

• Relevant specialist involvement: Paediatrician, speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and other team members

Current Feeding Dynamics & Patterns

• Typical day of eating: What, when, how much, and in what context your child eats

• Food acceptance: Current food repertoire, textures tolerated, and foods refused

• Mealtime behaviors: Duration, engagement, distraction, resistance, or distress

• Feeding method: Oral feeding, tube feeding, or combination approach

• Oral motor observations: Chewing patterns, swallowing efficiency, drooling, pocketing, gagging

• Family concerns: What worries you most and what you've tried.

• Mealtime anxiety: Signs of stress, fear, or trauma around eating

• Parent-child feeding relationship: Dynamics, pressure, responsiveness, and emotional connection during meals

Nutritional Analysis

• Energy and macronutrient intake: Are your child's calorie, protein, carbohydrate, and fat needs being met?

• Micronutrient adequacy: Assessment of vitamins, minerals, and potential deficiencies

• Hydration status: Fluid intake and signs of adequate hydration

• Growth adequacy: Is nutrition supporting optimal growth?

• Nutritional risk factors: Identifying areas of concern and priority

  Important: Nutritional assessment in children with feeding challenges requires careful interpretation. We don't just look at numbers—we consider your child's individual growth pattern, medical complexity, developmental stage, and overall wellbeing. Sometimes "adequate" nutrition by calculation doesn't mean comfortable, sustainable, or joyful eating.

This holistic understanding allows us to develop intervention strategies that address root causes rather than just treating symptoms. It helps us prioritise what needs attention first and identify which other professionals should be involved in your child's care.