Hallie Bulkin describes messy eating in toddlers as a common red flag for tethered oral tissues. She explains that persistent food spilling, lack of tongue lateralization (side-to-side movement), cheek pooling ("chipmunk cheeks"), and inefficient chewing/mashing can indicate difficulty clearing food rather than intentional behavior.
One of the biggest red flags for a possible tethered oral tissue right, in toddlers for exist, for example, is messy eating that just doesn't seem to improve, okay? We get parents who say to us a lot, and maybe you have two if you already work in peat feeding. They'll go, oh, they're just a messy eater, you know, oh, their food just falls out of their mouth. Or I was just always like, you know, off the plate on the side. And listen, I know adults like this too. But here's the thing. If you look closer, the tongue might not be lateralizing properly, right? It might not be moving side to side. That's what I mean when I say lateralizing. Maybe the food is pooling in the cheeks, right? They've got those cute little chipmunk cheeks. And it's not always because they still have the baby fat there. It's because those chipmunks are storing food in the cheeks, right? They've got those little chipmunk cheeks holding food. And it's not because they want to. It's because they're struggling to clear it properly. And instead of chewing efficiently, a lot of times these kiddos are mashing up the food, right?
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