Hallie Bulkin presents a short, practical YouTube episode for clinicians and caregivers about interpreting prolonged toddler mealtimes. She flags a mealtime of ~45 minutes or more as a clinical clue, and recommends asking about audible signs during eating (noisy breathing, gulping, coughing) because these can indicate motor, sensory, or structural/airway problems—even without observing a bite. The episode offers quick, actionable questions to uncover underlying issues like oral motor fatigue, sensory overload, poor hunger cues, avoidance, or possible airway red flags.
Chapters
How long does mealtime usually take if a toddler is taking, like, 45 or more minutes to eat? That's a clinical clue right there. That's not just a parenting style, so pay attention to that. Are there any sounds that you hear when your child is eating or drinking? Right. Noisy breathing, gulping, coughing. Like, these could be overlooked airway red flags. And so when you start listening to what parents are actually telling you, you'll uncover motor, sensory, and even structural concerns without needing to see the child take a single bite. So this is a short and sweet episode today because I wanted to bring you some, like, really helpful, like, quick wins in an episode. And so this is kind of just like a boom. Like, hey, that was really cool. Let me add that and start to ask about these things, because as you dive in, I talked about, like, the positioning, but, like, the length of the mealtime. Why would that be happening? Well, maybe the child's having some sensory, oral, motor struggles. Maybe they're having a hard time breaking the food down. It's very fatiguing for them. Maybe they don't like what they're eating, and there. There's some avoidance in there. Maybe they are not actually feeling hunger cues and they're not super hungry and they're not super motivated. Maybe their sensory system is overwhelmed. There could be so many different things going on, but, like, the fact that this child is still sitting and eating after 45 minutes, that is a clue right there.
