Irvine, California

Feeding Therapy for Picky Eaters in Irvine, CA

Play-based feeding therapy for children whose list of accepted foods keeps shrinking, in a kitchen and dining area built for exactly this.

Most families come to us after months of trying everything. Our feeding therapists are pediatric occupational therapists who specialize in feeding, and the work starts where your child actually is, not where a chart says they should be.

Schedule a tourCall or text (949) 835-3746
1,002+ children served Serving families since 2016 Dedicated therapy kitchen and dining area Ages birth to 12

Picky eating, or something more?

Nearly every young child goes through a picky phase. Most children move through it, and most of the time the right answer is patience rather than therapy. So the question worth asking is not whether your child is picky. It is whether the list is growing or shrinking.

A typically developing eater generally manages around 30 or more different foods, and will rotate through them. They may go off something for a while and come back to it. The children we see are on a different trajectory: the list is under 15 foods, it keeps getting shorter, and foods that drop off do not come back.

That pattern is not stubbornness, and it usually is not something a family can fix by holding the line at dinner. It tends to have real reasons underneath it, and those reasons are what feeding therapy works on.

Signs it may be more than picky eating

Any one of these can happen in a normal week. It is the pattern that matters, and how much of your family's life is organized around it.

What is on the plate

  • Eats fewer than about 15 different foods
  • The list keeps getting shorter, and dropped foods do not come back
  • Refuses entire food groups, not just individual foods
  • Accepts or rejects foods by texture or by color
  • Will only eat one brand, or food prepared exactly one way

What happens at the table

  • Meals regularly end in a standoff or a meltdown
  • Avoids sitting with the family at mealtimes
  • Distress at the sight or smell of a new food, before tasting it
  • You cook a separate meal for this child every night
  • Eating out, school lunch, or a birthday party feels impossible

The body and the mouth

  • Gags, coughs, or chokes on textures other children handle
  • Holds food in the cheeks rather than chewing and swallowing
  • Trouble moving from purees to lumpier textures
  • Difficulty with straws or open cups past the usual window
  • Weight or growth concerns your pediatrician has raised

If your pediatrician has flagged growth, weight, or a swallowing safety concern, start there. Feeding therapy works alongside medical care, not instead of it.

What we work on

Feeding sits at the intersection of sensory processing, oral motor skill, and how a child feels about the whole situation. We work on all three.

  • Expanding the accepted list. Adding foods without losing the ones you already have, which is the part families most often get wrong on their own.
  • Tolerating new textures. Moving through purees, soft solids, mixed textures, and crunch at a pace the child can actually manage.
  • Oral motor skills. The strength, coordination, and awareness that chewing, moving food around the mouth, and swallowing require.
  • Sensory comfort with food. Touching, smelling, and playing with a food long before anyone expects a bite.
  • Straws and open cups. The transition off bottles and sippy cups, and the oral motor skills underneath it.
  • Regulation at the table. Staying calm enough to be curious, which is the precondition for everything else.
  • Mealtime dynamics. Rebuilding a family meal that is not a negotiation, including what the adults do.
  • Carrying it home. Strategies for your kitchen, your schedule, and your child's actual preferences.

What a session looks like

Fifty minutes in a real kitchen, and almost none of it looks like eating.

  • We start where your child is. If a food cannot be in the room, we start with it in the room. Pressure to take a bite is what created the problem for many of these children, so we do not add more.
  • Sensory play comes first. Rice, sand, bubbles, and the foods themselves. Getting comfortable touching and smelling a food is a real step, not a warm-up.
  • Oral motor work is built into play. Blowing, chewing, and mouth games that build the skills a new texture will ask for.
  • A kitchen and dining area built for this. Not a therapy room with a snack in it. Real counters, a real table, and food prepared on site.
  • You are welcome in the room. Feeding progress happens at your table, three times a day, so what you see matters more here than almost anywhere.
  • The team talks. Feeding overlaps with sensory processing and with speech, and those therapists work under one roof and collaborate together.

Ways we support feeding

Feeding therapy is one of several services at our clinic. See all pediatric therapy services for the full picture.

Child at the table during a feeding therapy session in the Tumble N' Dots clinic kitchen in Irvine

One-on-one feeding therapy

Individual 50-minute sessions in our therapy kitchen, working through sensory comfort, oral motor skills, and expanding the accepted food list. This is where most families start.

Book a tour to get started
Child in a therapy swing during sensory integration therapy, which often runs alongside feeding therapy

Sensory integration therapy

For many children, food refusal is a sensory story before it is a food story. Where that is the case, sensory integration work runs alongside feeding therapy.

Sensory integration therapy
Speech-language pathologist working with a child on oral motor skills at Tumble N' Dots

Speech and language therapy

Chewing, swallowing, and speech use the same mouth. Where oral motor skills or swallowing are central, our speech-language pathologists work with the feeding team.

Speech therapy
Children cooking together during a group feeding session in the Tumble N' Dots therapy kitchen

Cooking and mealtime groups

Children try things in front of other children that they will not try for a parent. Our cooking groups put food handling and mealtime skills into a social setting.

Groups and camps

What helps at home

None of this replaces an evaluation, but these are the things we end up saying to almost every family.

  • Pressure backfires. Making a child finish a bite, bribing, or bargaining tends to raise the stakes around food and shrink the list further. It also costs you trust at the table you will need later.
  • Keep offering without requiring. A new food can sit on the table, on a separate plate, with nothing asked of it. Familiarity is doing work even when nothing is eaten.
  • Watch for burnout. Serving a favorite food constantly is the fastest way to lose it. If a food is on heavy rotation, spacing it out over a couple of weeks helps protect it.
  • Eat together when you can. Children take more cues from watching people they trust eat something than from being told it is good.
  • Vary what is offered, not what is required. Rotating brands, shapes, and preparations of foods your child already accepts builds flexibility without a fight.
  • Separate the meal from the mood. If dinner has become the hardest part of the day, that is worth solving on its own, ahead of any particular vegetable.

Children we work with

We see children from birth through age 12, with a wide range of diagnoses and, often, no diagnosis at all. A referral is not required to start.

Extreme picky eatingFood aversionTexture sensitivityAutismSensory processing differencesOral motor difficultyChewing and swallowing difficultyTransition to solidsBottle and cup transitionsDevelopmental delaysDown syndromePremature birth history

Who your child would work with

Our feeding therapists are pediatric occupational therapists who specialize in feeding, and all of our occupational therapists are trained in sensory integration, which matters more in feeding than in almost any other area. Avital Shuster, our founder and clinical director, holds advanced training in the SOS Approach to Feeding.

Caseloads stay deliberately small. Your child sees the same therapist week to week, and that therapist knows your family rather than your file.

Meet our therapy teamOur signature approach

Paying for feeding therapy

We are an out-of-network provider and are not contracted with any insurance plan, which means we do not bill your insurance directly.

  • You receive a detailed superbill twice a month, on the 1st and the 15th, with every code your insurance needs to consider reimbursement.
  • Superbills are always available in your parent portal, so you are never waiting on us for a copy.
  • Feeding therapy delivered by an occupational therapist is generally an eligible FSA and HSA expense.
  • Many of our families do receive reimbursement. Rates vary by plan, and insurers pay families directly.
Read the out-of-network reimbursement guide

Feeding questions parents ask

How do I know if my child is just picky or needs feeding therapy?
The clearest signal is direction. A typical picky eater has a stable list of around 30 or more foods and rotates through it. The children we see eat fewer than about 15 foods, the list keeps shrinking, and foods that drop off do not come back. If mealtimes have also become the hardest part of your day, that is worth a conversation regardless of the count.
How long is a feeding therapy session?
Sessions are typically 50 minutes. Every child is different, but most children come once a week.
Will my child have to eat anything in the session?
No. We do not pressure children to eat. For many of the children we see, pressure is part of what created the problem. Early sessions often involve touching, smelling, and playing with food rather than tasting it, and that is real progress, not a stalling tactic.
Should I make my child finish what is on the plate?
We would not. Requiring bites, bribing, or bargaining tends to raise the stakes around food and shrink the accepted list further. It also spends trust at the table that is hard to earn back.
My child eats the same thing every day and then suddenly refuses it. Why?
This is common enough to have a name among feeding therapists: burnout. Serving a favorite food constantly is the fastest way to lose it. Spacing a heavily rotated food out over a couple of weeks helps protect it.
What ages do you work with?
Birth through age 12, including bottle, cup, and texture transitions in the early years.
Is feeding therapy occupational therapy or speech therapy?
At our clinic, feeding therapy is delivered by pediatric occupational therapists who specialize in feeding. Where oral motor skills or swallowing are central, our speech-language pathologists work alongside them, since chewing, swallowing, and speech use the same structures.
Do you take insurance?
No. We are an out-of-network provider and do not bill insurance directly. We provide a detailed superbill twice a month that you can submit for possible reimbursement, and feeding therapy delivered by an occupational therapist is generally FSA and HSA eligible.
My pediatrician is worried about my child's weight. Should we still come?
Yes, and keep working with your pediatrician at the same time. Feeding therapy works alongside medical care, not instead of it. If there is a growth, weight, or swallowing safety concern, your medical team should stay involved throughout.

Come see the kitchen

The easiest way to know whether this is right for your child is to walk through the space. Book a tour with our clinical staff and bring your questions.

Schedule a tourCall or text (949) 835-3746