What Is a Feeding Assessment for Babies and Children? (A Parent-Friendly Guide)
If feeding your baby or child feels harder than it should be — long mealtimes, coughing, refusal, battles, meltdowns — a feeding assessment can help you understand what’s really going on. At our Blackburn clinic, we support families across Blackburn, Box Hill, Doncaster, Glen Waverley and surrounding suburbs with gentle, evidence-based feeding assessments for infants and children.
What is a feeding assessment?
A feeding assessment is a 360-degree evaluation of how your child eats, drinks, chews and swallows. It looks at both:
- Physical skills (sucking, chewing, tongue movement, jaw strength, swallowing)
- Sensory + behavioural factors (texture sensitivity, refusal, mealtime stress)
- Structural factors (tongue-tie, high palate, oral strength)
- Medical history (reflux, allergies, weight gain)
- Daily feeding routines and environment
It’s carried out by trained speech pathologists or occupational therapists who specialise in paediatric feeding.
What does the assessment look like?
Depending on the child’s age, we may:
For babies
- Observe a breast or bottle feed
- Check sucking–swallow–breathing coordination
- Look for tongue-tie or structural differences
- Assess posture and level of support
For toddlers + older children
- Offer safe samples of different textures
- Watch chewing, tongue movement and swallowing
- Observe sensory responses (gagging, avoiding, crying, pushing food away)
- Review diet variety, nutritional concerns, and growth
We also take a detailed history of feeding from birth to now.
Why it’s important
Feeding problems rarely fix themselves. Babies and children often need targeted support to:
- Improve oral skills
- Transition to solids
- Reduce gagging or refusal
- Expand their diet
- Improve weight gain
- Reduce stress at mealtimes
The goal is to understand why feeding is hard — and create a personalised plan to help.
Bilingual families welcome
We can conduct the assessment in English, Cantonese or Mandarin, especially helpful for families where grandparents or carers speak Chinese.
Serving families across Blackburn, Box Hill, Doncaster, Burwood, Glen Waverley & Melbourne’s east
Book your feeding assessment