Elevating Your Clinical Impact in Pediatric Feeding Therapy

I'd rather someone be referred to me and may say you don't need therapy right now but here's what you can do at home and come back and call than someone to slip through the cracks and be five coming in.

Hi and welcome back to the Untethered podcast. Today we have Melanie Peacockshell joining us. Melanie is a speech language pathologist with 40 plus years of experience working in virtually every setting from schools to private practice to early interventions and the hospital setting. She specializes in pediatrics, feeding and swallowing, sensory communication and neurodiversity, affirming practices with autism and other diagnoses. And she currently works in a hospital outpatient facility and RDI based private practice. And she is a pediatric feeding mentor inside of our Pediatric Feeding hub. Before we jump in, I do have to give Melanie a congratulations because she, at the end of 2025, graduated as a certified pediatric feeding therapist with that brand new pediatric feeding certification under her belt. So congrats, Melanie. We are so excited for you. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the Untethered podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balk. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway tether, dural tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest. Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart.

Breathe through your nose.

Let's get started.

Melannie, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you so much. It's great to be here.

I'm always excited to chat with you. You are? Literally. You're one of our mentors in the Pediatric Feeding hub, which I know we'll talk about. You've taken Feed the peas. You are now one of our latest CPFT certified Pediatric feeding Therapist graduates. Delicious. Thank you. Yeah. And so you know, now that you've kind of gone through this, the entire trajectory of everything we offer from beginner to advanced certification, I just, I know we're going to dive into that today, but I would love for you to start and share with everybody. Like, where were you in your career before you jumped into the advanced certification into CPFT?

Before, before CPFT, I had done well, 45 years into speech pathology itself, done everything, private practice, school system, clinics, child development, all of that. And I had then been working in a hospital for 20 years, now an outpatient, so kind of at that point. And I took Feed the PEDs in 2021. Did that, loved it. Kept going and going. Did the MYO method in between that and in my membership, you know, all the things, but just kept feeling like, I need more than this. I need some more. I need some more. And loved the Feed the Peas and MYO method with all the mentorship. That was really, really key to me having live people to talk to about what to do. Because most courses you take and things that you do for certification, you don't really get that. You go to a course for a couple of days or you do some online things, but there's no feedback. And what do I do tomorrow in my session? So that's kind of where I was. And I was actually, gosh, when was it? March, I guess. I talked to you of 2025, because I was on the fence of do I go ahead and do the CMT or. Or do the cpft. So for me, that was the thing. And we talked, and you said, what are you seeing most? And it was feeding. So probably at least half my caseload is feeding therapy. So that was kind of a trajectory. And then as I went along, a lot of my autistic kids and kids with sensory needs came in for speech and language, and what do you know, most of them needed feeding therapy, too. You see that kind of thing. So that's where I was when I started cpft. And I thought, I want to learn more. But I also love mentoring, have a lot of CFS students, all those kinds of things. I wanted to do that more. So I got offered the feeding hub, which was great, to kind of start that. And so it was all right at the same time. CPFT and feeding Hub. Well, I will say I didn't know exactly what I was jumping into, but it was definitely worth it. One of our cohort members said, it's like graduate school on speed. I would say, no, no, no. More like doctoral program on speed. So that's how it was. But it was, you know, what I really needed to kind of create what I want to do going forward in my career.

I love that. And we love having you inside the pediatric feeding hub. And so for anybody listening, I'll just quickly give a little debrief of, like, what it is that we offer, because I know we just threw around a whole lot of programs, right? So we've got the Mind, which is our MYO course, our introductory but like, very comprehensive complete MYO course, which can then go into certified myofunctional Therapist, cmt, as you know, if you want to get certified in myo. But I get a lot of people coming to me, like you said, who are like, well, what do I get certified in? Like, what makes the most sense for my career, for my path that I'm on. And that's the question I literally will ask. And anyone can tell you. I ask in the DMs, I ask, We've gotten on a call together. I will say, who are you working with right now? And then people will usually tell me and I'll say, okay, is that the same as who you want to be working with right now? Because sometimes people are like, well, I'm working with mayo, but I want to be doing more feeding, or I'm working with feeding, but I really want to be doing MYO or I want to be doing both. And I just don't know which one to do first. And so then I'm like, okay, go back to who you're working with right now. That's probably who it's going to be the most helpful to start a course or certification with because you have that caseload and you want to work with that caseload. So, like, I would dive in there right now, personally, if that were me. Right? And so I'm like, that's the best guidance I usually give people. And I wanted to kind of like frame that because I love that you said, like, you asked me, who am I working with? Yeah. And it's like, well, feeding. Yeah. I think the mayo is so helpful to also understand, like, where are these kids headed? What can I do with them now? Right. But like in Feed the peds, right? So like kind of breaking down. I always say we have two pathways. We have our MYO pathway and our feeding pathway. So that was the MYO one. Then the feeding one is Feed the Peas and you know, the Pediatric Feeding hub and then the CPF team, the certified Pediatric Feeding Therapist certification. Right? And so I always tell everyone, Feed the Piece is like your 40 hour intro, but super comprehensive. Like, honestly, the kind of content we. It's an intro course, but like, it really goes into like some intermediate stuff because we're going through so many topics. And so it's like introductory level for a lot of general topics and then some stuff we do dive deeper into. And that's where it gets a little bit more Intermediate on some of the topics. And so it's where you're going to learn all of that typical development, how to assess, you know, beginner treatment, treatment planning, all that fun stuff. And then medical complexities and how. Then tots and mayo and how to adapt all that to our littlest patients. Because we know my was really for the four to five year, you know, chronological age plus group. So that's feed the peds. That's kind of like level one, if you will. And then we have the pediatric feeding hub, where it's like, all right, this. And this is where Melanie is mentoring for us. Like, this is where you come from for mentorship and community for pediatric feeding. Like, this is where if you're like, okay, I've already done all these intro courses. I've been in the field for a while. I want some mentorship. I want community around pediatric feeding. That's what the hub is. It's not really like, I don't have any patients. I want to see if this is what I want to do. Like, it's really not going to be that helpful to you because people are coming and talking about cases and getting mentorship cases in there, whether it be in, like the shared community group or on the live, you know, mentorship calls. But after that, everyone was like, okay, we want advanced training and like, certification level training. Like, what do we do? Like, deep, deep, deep dive, like you said, PhD, right? That doctoral on speed. How do we take this next level? And that's where we wanted to create a program that was functional, like something that you could actually go back and implement with your current patients and use your own current patients as part of the process so that you're actually, you're learning. There are CEUs involved, intermediate to advanced CEU coursework, and a lot of it on all the topics. Right. But how do we actually, really, really dive deep into those clinical skills? And that really falls into everything from writing reports to treatment planning to demonstrating that you can take a case from start to finish or a couple of cases, you know, and talk about those cases. And it's so funny to me because we have a lot of people who come through and they're like, I've been in the field for X number of years, and I'm so nervous to do this case study presentation. And I'm like, sigh. It's like some of you work in hospitals or in places where, like, you have to present cases to a pediatrician or to an ENT or, you know, you have to, you know, do your rounds and talk about this particular case, and you have, like, 30 seconds to hit all the important information on the head, and how are you doing that? And you can't even. We're giving you all this time to go through. Very cohesive, you know, anyways, it's a different skill set, but it really helps you kind of, like, sharpen that, you know, that pencil head, if you will. And so it's very. It's so fascinating to see everyone go through it, but it's so cool to see everybody come out on the other side of it. And for us to be like, we created that, and y' all are, like, doing such amazing, incredible things on the other side of the cpft. So I guess my. My question for you now that we've kind of explained all the different things going back to cpft, like, do you feel like it's made a difference for you? And, like, if. Yes, like, what is. Like, what are those differences that you're seeing, whether it's in your practice or, you know, collaborations or what?

In everything. In every aspect of life. I mean, everything. Everything. So first of all, like, what you were saying, I do feel like it's very intense, but so you just become, like, on this wheel of. I can't wait to open this next thing up. I can't wait for the next hour and a half I spent on Monday night or Tuesday night with the group or the small group. And, you know, that's crazy, right? But it's so. Yeah. After a full day work, but you're like, oh, where is it? And when it was over, we're all going, oh, man, you know, what are we going to do after that?

It's so funny. Melanie, sorry to interrupt you. It's so funny because it's like, in a lot of our other programs, people are kind of, I think, like, zoom fatigued. Like, they don't always want to show up at night for things. They rather watch the recording, which is fine. But we found that with the CPFT, it's like 99% of all of the live calls are attended in person. And you guys, like, eat them up. And we're like, oh, my gosh, this is it. This is intense. But, like, also, you guys are like, love. You're loving it. And this has now been, for both cohorts the past two years. It's happening with both groups. So I'm. We're just like, okay, we're onto something here.

Yeah, it's like a. Just a hidden gem, I guess, because you get that passion for it, because you're taking the courses and they are just igniting all this stuff in your head. But then we have the calls and it's not just, hey, how you doing? You know, it's more like every one of the large group calls with some kind of training, but also talking with each other and collaborating with the cohort members as well as the three mentors who are, bar none. Let me just say that of course I'm partial to mine, Nadine, who was just perfect for me. And I don't know how y' all choose that stuff, but that's why we.

Do that call it. Yeah, I do a 30 minute call. Right. And we talked about all of your goals and like, what, like, okay, if you go into this and that's before you even committed, because I want to make sure that like before you all make this investment and time and money and whatever, like, one, this is the right path for you. Two, we can actually help you accomplish whatever those goals are that you're setting out to accomplish. And three, like, with this cohort, do we have people, people that we can match you up with and the right mentor for your goals? And so I do those calls very with that in mind so that I can match you. And then I sit there and I move, I take all these notes while we're talking so that I can like move you all around and be like, okay, this person really wants to go into the nicu, and so does this person. And we have our ot Beth, who is in the nicu. Okay, this is going to be. They're going to go over here. I've got some people who want to be in private practice and. Or maybe they're not private practice, but they're working with similar patients that we see in our private practice. And Nadine's my lead clinician, so like, I know her skill set. I know, like, okay, this makes sense to put you here. Okay, now there's Shasha. I was like, well, Shasha is doing, you know, so it's like, I know. And it's interesting too because there's always patterns that come through. And on this last cohort, I think I spoke to like five people and I think three of the five ended up joining who wanted to like build out a pediatric feeding program, not necessarily their own, but like within the confines of where they were working. And I was like, oh, well, I'm going to pair those people together because it makes sense that either like that already exists in somebody who is in this group, or they all want to create similar things and they're seeing similar patients, and this therapist is going to be really good for helping them with that. And so, yeah, I'm sitting here like a puzzle piecemealing together the groups, because that's part of the experience that y' all are paying for. It's like. And investing your time in. Like, I want you to be with people on a similar journey. Now, obviously, we all have things that are going to be a little different, but, like, my goal for you is to also then have those people to link arms with after certification so that you all can continue to communicate with each other and create your own little groups outside of cert so that you can continue to support each other going forward, too. So it's like a lifetime, you know, linking up of you all beyond even the certification. So you continue to have that support outside of the mentors, because you guys are all mentor level now. Like, all of you come out. And if you weren't already mentoring, like, or. But if you weren't already mentoring, a lot of people are able to step into a mentorship position after certification, which is just wild.

And just how you spread that. You spread it that way and you can reach out the tentacles and everything. First of all, I mean, this thing humbled me, like, big time.

Oh, my gosh.

Imposter syndrome. Yeah. What in the world? Because there were so many women. I mean, it's all women right now anyway. But, you know, there you go. That's our. But it was like, all these OTs and SLPs are just amazing, you know, so that kind of got me. But it challenged me and made me grow instead of. I hate being my age, being in this forever, just sitting. I can't sit. I'm like, CEU junkie. But this is a next level because of that mentorship and because of the groups, the large and the small. And my small group, of course, was the best to me, of course. But we actually had five of us in the group. I think the others were smaller, but we gelled. In fact, when you say that we were planning, like, weeks before, how are we all going to get together? How are we going to be collaborating? We're doing that, you know, it's. It's happening.

Everyone's like, but, like, can we all stay together? I'm like, you can. It's not going to be through us directly, but, like, we want you to do that so, like, you all can go create your own, like, little, you know, telegram channel or whatever and stay connected. It's.

And that was so. It was so great. Because that helped me, you know, I've not only made professional connections and collaboration, but good friends, good, real human. The human relationships have been like fantastic. And just seeing those little differences but likenesses, you know. One of my group members is in Georgia and works in a hospital.

Wow.

Now I know you puzzle piece that together, but that, you know, now we've made connections because we're close enough that she needs to come to Macon or I need, you know, go down where she is. You know, we can refer back and forth, which is like fabulous. And then, you know, we have one of our cohort members is in a feeding school. That's all they do. Which is totally unusual, I think in the country. Right. But just looking at her, she came up, they come up with these feeding plans that they give out. I'm like, how smart is that? It was just so many things with that that was able to propel me into better, I guess, collaboration. And then my OTs and SLPs in my practice or the hospital, whatever, they are all now coming and wanting to learn more from me as well. Not just me, but the program and what I've learned. We also are having a symposium in March that is on development. It's mostly going to be to providers, we think, but I'm going to do the feeding part along with help from everybody else. But they're not just looking at, you know, basically, oh, they can't swallow whatever it's. We're going to use the feed, the pee screener, you know, because it also has not just feeding, of course it has what's going to be happening, gross motor, fine motor utensil use, all of that all the way across, which is fantastic because that gets all together and knowing, well, they don't have these gross motor skills, they're probably not going to have those feeding skills, vice versa. And so that's kind of been a great thing. So hopefully we can inform and help get better referrals. And I'm of the mindset, I'd rather someone be referred to me. And me say, you don't need therapy right now, but here's what you can do at home and come back and call then someone to slip through the cracks and be five coming in with a long face and a big tongue tie, you know, 100%.

I love that. So it's created some other opportunities then because you're now getting to also like speak at the symposium and share your knowledge and you know, and I think like one of the big goals and you and I were chatting before we Hit record. But one of my big goals is like, get kids off pediatric feeding therapy wait list. That's why I started to feed the peas. And now I'm like, okay, we've trained thousands of SLPs and OTS, but could we do this exponentially faster and at least get the kids to the right place? Like, exactly what you're saying by teaching providers who are like related providers in hospital settings and in clinics and stuff, like the nursing team and the dietitians and anybody who might be working with a child who possibly needs to be referred for pediatric feeding assessment and like, teach them what to look for and so we can all kind of collaborate better, speak the same language, make sure, like you said, kids are not slipping through the cracks. And like, and it's better that they're eval than not. Even if that tells parents, hey, you know what? I see why the kid was evaluated or why the kid was referred. You know why your child was referred. Here's what I want you to watch for. Be on the lookout for at home. Let's make sure these things are happening. And if you have any concerns at all, you come on back in and we'll, we'll help you out, you know, versus, like I said, the kid ends up, ends up coming in at age 5 and like, there's just so much we could have done earlier to kind of get that kid on a different trajectory. And so I love what you're doing. Like, if we could have more people speaking at symposiums, at conferences, at trainings to providers and providers who are not necessarily feeding therapists. Right. Like providers in related spaces and in referring spaces and collaborative spaces so that they understand what we do better and they know when to refer to us and when to, you know, like, oh my gosh, that's the dream. Like, that would be so helpful.

Yeah. And you say that that was one of the things in this CPFT program was the referral part. We had a whole large group on it. It's in all of the courses, I think in the differential diagnosis course one that was one of the great ones I wish I had taken at the beginning before I did my written stuff.

That feedback, we're going to make sure that everybody knows.

I did say that that was my.

Feedback because, like, I think we should probably, because we had like three courses that we wanted everyone to watch at the beginning.

Those were good.

I don't know if that was one of the three, but I'm like, we're going to add that to the front.

It wasn't. And I kept pushing it off and I was like, after the written one, I took it because somebody, one of the group members said, oh, well, you know, the intake in there looks really great or something. And I took it and I'm like, I should have done this.

Yeah, but how would you know? So like we're like, thank you for that feedback. Now that we've got all this amazing feedback, we can take this and implement.

And then it gives you in that course and in a lot of. In everything else. Even like the GUT course and the core. I mean you've got things down to minute Vision impairments. I mean, what a world that opened up and all those kinds of things that were in the course. But referrals, you know. Yes. I was making them before and I had some connections and I have a great airway centric dentist, a couple of them here, which is like a miracle. Craniosacral people. That's my problem. We need to get those in Georgia train station snack. But anyway, one of the things that was just pressed on was make these referrals, you know, especially the gut thing. And I'm like going back. My GP here is just like wonderful. And so I'm going to her. I'm going, what do you think about this? Yes. Yes. Let's get this going. Nutritionist. Whoa. Because it gets. That's another slip through in the hospital. But now I've or on track with someone who is really great. So that has got to go to. For everybody, especially these kids that are coming in. They only drink pediasure and maybe eat a Cheeto and that's it. You know, they're, they're gaining weight. Oh, they look good. No, that was another thing being on.

The weight chart and gaining and getting to develop your brain. But hey, you know what's, what's fun for me.

Yeah. So you can't sleep, you can't. You know, all that. So those kinds of things. Another really big thing that hit me and Beth was really good with that in our group is yes, there's a lot of sensory. Because I see a lot of autistic kids and neurodivergent kids who do have lots of sensory challenges. Yes. That can be a big piece. And of course here plug in another one sensory complex Fear course was also fab. I took that on my own before I ever started cpft. Just. And that's another thing I think you should, people should know is you can take those courses. Yes.

That whole CPFT curriculum of course is they're all intermediate to advanced. Thank You, Melanie. And we do offer them, like, you can take one off courses and everything. And I think we've, like, offered some bundles. I don't know if we have them bundled on the website right now or not, but we try to bundle them by, like, topics that we thought might be helpful. So I'd have to go back and look at that. But, yes, we do offer that, and I never talk about it.

So it was a great. It's a great thing because I took three of them beforehand. And that was another thing that propelled me. I thought, if this is the level, I need this back to the sensory thing that I kind of digress on. But, you know, yes, that was there. But, you know, Beth was like, I want y' all to really, really look. And it's that OT mindset. I think that's maybe a little different than us. Yeah. She says, look at the motor. It's all right there. And really, probably 99% of the kids I have that do have all these sensory issues. There's a root motor problem, you know, oral motor problem, you know, tethered or tissue problem, whatever. All those kind of different things. And especially looking at autistic kids and neurodivergent kids tend to have a lot of gut problems. They tend to have a lot of motor issues, period. Yeah. With. Throughout their body. So that was a really big thing to look at and not just let these kids. Oh, well, they're picky because they're autistic by. You know, so. Yeah.

So it's so interesting is, you know, I've talked about this at some points, but I don't know how much people really know. Like, I started my career, and I was very interested in working with autistic children. I did work with a lot of them. I worked in the schools first, but when I came out of the schools, I was very focused on working with autistic children, but really giving them a voice, like, figuring out what their communication style looked like. Before, the whole GLP thing was, like, big and popular and being talked about back in, like, 2009, like, this is kind of, like, where it was headed, but really just connecting with these kiddos and getting them to connect with me so that we could communicate and figure out how they were communicating. And then that's when I started to notice that, you know, sometimes I had one who was withholding vowels, and he wasn't available for our sessions. And I'm like, they want us to push through. And ABA wants to push through, but the kid is really jumping up and down and clearly uncomfortable, and he's not available for anything right now. And so it was learning how to, you know, respect the child in front of me and not listen to other adults and what they felt like their agenda needed to be in the moment. I'm letting the child kind of drive that session, but also then noticing, well, why is this child always having an issue with bowel movements? And this kid only eats white foods and yellow foods and beige foods and wait a second, so do all the other autistic kids on my caseload. Okay, there's a pattern here. Now, at the same time, I was working on my own gut health, and I was learning about, like, the GAPS diet, the gut and psychology syndrome, and also learning about scb. I think it was like something scientific, something diet. Anyways, and that. Not that I was doing this with the kids or anything, but learning about that, figuring out my own gut health stuff and working with these children. All these dots started to connect and I was like, oh, my gosh. If basically our brain, like they say, like, the gut is the second brain. So, like, if this gut and brain connection is not connecting, if we're not feeding everything that we need to be fed, and we're kind of stuck in this loophole of eating the foods that are. That feel safe, but that don't feed our bot through our body, that to constipation. And then I started to realize, oh, wait, these kids also have oral motor things going on, and that is contributing to some of their sensory responses and their gut issues. And, you know, it's like it was just sort of like this snowball kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I was like, everything is so interconnected. Why is nobody talking about this? And that's what threw me into pediatric feeding even deeper. Because then I was like, well, I want to figure that out. Like, this is fascinating. And I learned, you know, and I was already in the feeding world, but I was now in it in a different way. And then I had my own child who then was tongue tied and infant feeding, which I hadn't been doing. She threw me into all of that, you know, almost 11 years ago. So here we are. But it was so fascinating because I was like, nobody's actually asking, well, is a child getting proper nutrition? They're really just focused on making sure they poop and making sure they get enough calories in. And I'm like, that's important. Both those things are important. But also, like, what's also equally important is making sure they're getting the nutrition they need for their brain to develop and for their body to process foods and expel them. Like, we are constipated because we're swallowing pieces whole, chewing food, swallowing. We're taking massive bites. And, well, that's impacting digestion. And then we're using Miralax to clear it, which is full of all kinds of chemicals. So that can't be helpful.

Right?

It's just like this whole. I was like, this is the perfect excuse my French shits dorm, literally and figuratively. And I was like, these poor. These poor kids, like, how do we help them feel good? Like, right, feel. Everyone just wants to feel good, right? And this is not them. And so I just. I started to have a lot of compassion for the therapists working with the kids, for the parents, for the caregivers. Because at the end of the day, you just like, what is your responsibility as a parent? You want your kid to be happy and healthy. Like, you want your kid to be able to eat and enjoy food. And that was like. I was like, watching these families, and I'm like, this is the biggest stressor of their life. Like, yes, the kid can't communicate, but they're not. They're not eating. They don't want to eat. They're grazing all day. The kid is constipated. They're unhappy. They don't feel well. Of course they're unhappy. Like, it was just. It just threw me down this entire rabbit hole. And I was like, I'm determined to help these kids eat better and feel better so they can thrive. Like, I feel like it all starts.

There because it does. And you think about it. I mean, I've worked with autistic kids most of my career. My grandsons are both autistic. So, you know, I see all of that from a professional and a personal standpoint of what the parents are dealing with. And if you look at it in all my sensory training, all of the autistic everything, it starts at the bottom with belt safety and with regulation first belts. Do I feel safe with this person or in this situation? Well, yeah. If you don't feel safe eating, how are you ever going to get to be regulated to the next level so you can engage and then learn language going up, the whole pyramid thing, which was touched on in that very deeply, actually, in the sensory course. So it all is just all this connection and when you say that about yourself. So I've gone on this whole journey with myself over the past couple of years just thinking as I'm looking at the myo Stuff. I'm probably tongue tied. I probably got a bunch of this stuff going on. I don't sleep well, you know. No, no, no. And so in this past year that's kind of been coming to fruition. A lot of dental restorative work for Grinding. Just got done being on the Mayo membership and talking to some of the mentors. Like, Ann was like, have you ever. Do you think it's your TMJ or you have a tmd? I'm like, what? No, I think it's this tongue tie that finally got diagnosed by the dentist, you know? And I'm like, I think it's a tongue tie. She's like, have them check that. So he sent me to an orthodontist to have to see if I could get a night guard. Do you apply whatever. The orthodontist is going, look at these scans.

Yeah.

Your whole left side is off the. Yeah. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I'm. So I'm now in a night splint on the top for that and a bottom aligner. So there I am probably gonna get this tongue done at some point and been kind of treating myself, but I need to really get into more mayo for myself, so. And then I'm like, this is what they feel. And I'm an adult, so you're in it, too.

Yeah, I'm in it. I always. I always joke. I'm like, if I do it to my kids, I gotta do it to myself, too. So, like, when they had their tongue ties released, I was like, this is something.

Yeah. But I had nothing for them.

I guess I need to do more expansion for myself. So here we are. But no, it's.

It's.

You know, when it's also very interesting because we talk a lot about how, like, you don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you're missing out on until you realize what you're missing out on. And as an adult, like, coming out of the tongue tie release and adult expansion and having my septum fixed and all these things, I was like, I feel like I was missing out on an entire life. I'm like, oh, that's what it feels like to be rested. I had no idea, because I never was. And no one was always tired and thriving on coffee, which I can't even, like, drink coffee anymore. Like, as of the past, like, year or two. The cat. It's not even a caffeine. I think it's the actual, like, coffee bean or something. I just don't feel well. I drink it and I don't feel well. I can have caffeine in, like, a black tea format, and I'm okay, but the coffee and I, like, my gut is like, nope, you're done. But I've been on this whole, like, healing journey now for quite a while. But, like, it's. Because I just kind of keep figuring out, like, well, what else can I do to help myself thrive? And it's like, baby steps. One little thing or big thing at a time. But, like, one thing at a time.

And so, yeah, I think that's huge because. And we talked about this in the course as well. Or the. I don't even want to call it a course. I call it a program.

Yeah, it's a program. Yeah.

Big, big thing. A big, big thing is taking care of yourself.

Yeah.

And making sure that you have all your things in a row and then you can relate to these kids. And it's like. Then you look at the adults in the room, and it's like, oh. And they're like, snoring's not normal. And I'm like, no. And that's another big thing. Sleep is so important. When you do a feeding about. You gotta ask about it. And I think that doesn't happen. No.

And parents are always surprised. Like, why do you care about their sleep? Like, what does that have to do with anything?

It's more like a freight train. But, you know, like, let me tell.

You, like, you know, their behaviors during the day. What's their sleep? And, you know. Yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. It was ice.

They just snore with their mouth open all night.

Yeah. You're like. That tells me a whole lot of information. Thank you for that. Very helpful. Yep. And we can do something about that.

Perfect. So I just. I think there's so many, like, levels that we miss. Just. And I think so. Great. Oh, also, in cpft, y' all did add a. No, at least one course. Are you still adding courses? Right?

We do, yeah. So basically, the way that we came up with the initial curriculum was based on courses that had been asked for, like, a deeper dive into certain topics. For the first, like, I don't know, three, four years of doing Feed the Peeds. And so then we sent out to all of our graduates because we had a couple thousand graduates. We were like, let's basically ask them at that time a couple years ago.

Right.

What courses do you think are important? Rank these. Right. And then we were like, okay, now rank them in order of importance. And so that really helped us decide what to create first as we rolled everything out during our first cohort. And now since we're now we just finished up the second cohort and we only do one per year because they're eight months long. We basically were like, you're like, oh, I know. Oh, I know. We were like, okay, what's missing? Like, do you feel like there are other topics that you want to dive further into? Because, you know, we want to provide that, that content. And if we can, the way that we're creating content is not just to give another ceu, it's to create it in a functional way that really brings home and connects all the dots. Right. For pediatric feeding is almost like what we're talking about, what we're doing here and how we're implementing it in our day to day. And so that's how we kind of seek out course creators and we talk with them about like, you know, what do you foresee going into this course? And like, we're not trying to micromanage anything, but like they're the topic activities expert. That's why they're selected or invited to create the course or, you know, chosen. But we're like, we would just want to make sure this material is functional. And anybody, anyone coming in and creating stuff for us really understands like that that's important. Right? So that's been really, really cool. But yeah, we're still, we'll still keep creating intermediate to advanced courses. Not at the same speed that we did in the past couple years. Yeah, yeah, we got to get all these courses in there. And people are not forced to take the courses that are, that are in there. But we do require, you know, the 82 hours of coursework for certification as part of it. And so if people have outside intermediate to advanced courses that cover certain topics, they're more than welcome to use other courses. Maybe they've already taken in the past couple years. But so far everybody has gone through our courses.

Take every one of those, let me just say, because you've got, I mean, those deep dives. But then you look at Cheryl's courses. Oh my word. I'd already gotten the side bite her, because I heard her on the podcast and I'm like, she is so cool, but she just has the ideas out. The Walmazuka is all I can say.

Yeah, she just like flavors and she's.

Like, no, let's get this into their repertoire. Here's how you do this. And all the kitchen things, you know, all the food Mills and things. And I'm like, that is such a good idea.

Yeah, she's just brilliant.

So those. That's a whole nother piece of it. Whereas you get the motor skill, but what can you eat while you're getting that motor skill? And how can you break down the food? And one of my favorite terms that she had was dry puree. I'd never heard that before. Yeah. And that's like the crumbing. Not even crumbing, almost just totally. I don't know what you would even call it, but like making a powder. Graham crackers or Ritz, whatever they love. But then you can start to transition to other things, so. And get it.

Yeah. She's so amazing. Yeah. So, I mean, it was so funny the first time she and I recorded a podcast and we were trying. We were actually. She sent me the side biters and I was like, let's record a podcast and talk about using them. And as we were talking about, I was like, cheryl, we could be using this in myofunctional therapy.

Yes.

Kids who have like limited repertoires food wise. Now, obviously this is going to be more pediatric feeding than MYO at this point, but this is a lot of US SLPs notes are getting these kids right who need both. And so we could use this for introduction. Yeah. And like even just introduce skills with this depending on the kid's age. And that's when she was then creating the kitty version of it too. And I was like, oh, this is so exciting. And so, I mean, she's just incredible. But she just was like spouting off ideas left and right. I was like, well, this is making me think maybe I could do this and we could try that. And she was like, oh, yeah, what about this and this and this and this? And I was like, oh, my gosh. And you need to come be in our, like world because you're like a fountain of constant therapy ideas. And this is what everybody wants. They want access to like a brain that just constantly has all these ideas of may not even.

It's one little kind of niche, little part of it. But it's so huge overall when you put all that together. It was great. And you can even use the side biter without the holes just by itself. Work on skills because it's still going to get that, you know, jaw alignment, not having jaw, you know, all of the things, the myo, slash, whatever. There's so many things for that that are just fantastic. And I, I can't say enough.

So, okay, so who should take CPFT versus, like, let's say someone who should wait. Or like, is there someone that you feel like would be ideal to enter into the CPFT as a SLP or OT or even a PT in feeding.

I would say I still think you need to take feed the peds. That's just me. And I've taken everything. NDT courses, you know, Beckman, back in the day. No MAs back in the 1900s, you know, whatever. Way back in the day, you know, in the 1900s. But, you know, all of those things that I couldn't. SOS everything, all the things you hear, but it never. I couldn't pull all that together. Feed the peds helped was great, but I wanted to go further. So someone who is kind of at that point of, hey, I really want to specialize down. And even, like, I'm not in the nicu, but the course anymore, did that too. But back in the NICU course, it also talks about who's coming out and what to do then. And many more people will probably be on the outpatient side of that.

I love that you said that because we have people ask us, well, should I? Because you don't have to take every course to hit your 82 hours, because we have extra courses in there now. But. And people have said, well, should I take you? And we're like, everyone should take the nicu. Because these kids, a lot of them, right, may have. Some of your patients will have come from nicu. So you need to understand what happened in the nicu. And two, they transition home. And that was an important part of that conversation. There's not a lot of support between NICU and home. And so understanding how does support those kids who have just come out of the nicu. And hey, if anybody wants to create some programs in their hospitals or in their outpatient settings or wherever you work to help bridge that gap between NICU and home. Like, there needs that exist or at least therapists who know how to work with these kids. And it's well known who these therapists are in your area, right? These. These children and their families are. They're on their own, really. Unfortunately, a lot of the time anyways, a little plug for that.

And so true. Because even in our hospital, lactation stops and nicu, you have to find someone outside of that person. So that's horrible. When you're a mom who's going home not having the support of the NICU anymore, and you're like, what do I do with this kid?

Right, yeah, Community resources. When you're in Especially those who have.

Just been pumping in the NICU and are going home and actually going to breastfeed. And, you know, it's a hard, it's tough call a lot of times. So that was something too. I think anyone that just wants to really know more, it will humble you. I'm prom, I mean, I'm like, how does all this exist? But also know you can take those pieces and put those with your patient because every one of your patients that walk in the door, or people or clients, whatever you're calling them these days, when they walk in that door, they're going to be different in some respects. But also the working with the family, it's one unit. It's not just the kid.

Yeah.

It's never just the kid. And I think that's. And you have to. That was another thing that was really brought home in the course, in the program. I'm going to keep saying that wrong.

Okay. You know, you mean program.

You know what I mean. But within that program was that you have to meet the family where they are. You can't be giving them these elaborate home programs and all these exercises to do and things to do when they just can't even get up and make for the day. Half the time you need to do it really slowly and where they are. And I even had one of my case presentations. They were reluctant to do more testing on their NICU baby and I had to kind of, I wanted a modified done, but I waited to kind of keep pushing that because they just weren't ready. And sometimes you have to do that. And that's, you know, a case for that. But also by doing the feeding hub office hours and mentoring in there, I've also seen that a lot of those therapists who are kind of in between that feed the peeds kind of level already, they're ready. And I, you know, I always suggest take those courses, you know, take a couple of those one offs and see what you think because it will make you want to dive in. You do have to have to take that, you know, in your head, okay, I've got to have this time. This is what I'm going to do. And it may be more difficult. I don't have kids at home, young kids where, you know, babies and toddlers and all of that. So it could be harder. But I'll tell you, we had cohort members whose ears were running around. So, you know, it's all done.

All, you know, so far it's been all. I don't think the men would mind Anyways, those men, you know, those SLPs who come and do feeding. We've had a couple men go through Feed the Feeds. But, yeah, I mean, we're very. We're very friendly. We also understand it's like real life. And listen, like, I'm a mom in business where my child and I haven't really shared this, like, so much yet, because this is newer. But, like, she's gonna be coming with me to some of my business mastermind events because she's part of this Courage Club thing that she joined. And the woman who runs it, her daughter started the courage club. She's 11, my daughter is 10, going, you know, 10 and a half. And it's introducing them to leadership, and they're going to have their own little program, right? And so, like, I am all for having our kids present. Like, you know, if you need to meet for a minute because it's noisy and you're getting your kids settled, that's fine. Like, you know, I feel like people are like, oh, it's so unprofessional, or, oh, I can't do this, or, oh, I can't do that. No, we want you to take the program and fit it into your life in the way that you need to make it work in order to achieve your goals. Because society tells you a whole bunch of stories and a whole bunch of how things should be done, and that's just not how I subscribe to life. Like, I have built my businesses with my babies on my hips, and they are now 7 and 10. So, you know, I'm like, I'm all for it. And there's a lot of females and moms and women who got into these professions because they wanted to raise children. So I'm like, okay, if you have your baby waving on the camera, like, that doesn't bother anybody. But anywho, thank you so much. Thank you. All of this, and, you know, we really look at it as, like, feed the peeds gives you the foundations pft, that program that gives you mastery. And that's like, this is, you know, what we talked about is really, like, why that matters for your career. And it's been really cool to see what a lot of you are doing with, you know, this advanced certification. We are opening doors to cpft. We invite everybody to apply. And when you apply and you decide, like, that you do want to, like, figure out if this is for you, that's when you get to get on the phone with me and talk through it and figure out, like, is this the right next to step for you. So thank you so much for your time, Melanie.

Thank you for everything. You've changed my life.

Well, you're the best. One of these days we all have to get together and like be in the same physical room together. We'll have to be great.

Yes.

Event or something. You know, that would be absolutely. Take it. Take it off the zooms and off the Internet and bring it in real life into the room.

Be real. Yeah.

Yes. Well, thank you, Melanie. This has been.

You're welcome. Thank you.

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