Ask the Dentist with Dr. Mark Burhenne

Episode #71: A discussion with Dawn Winkelmann about striving for mealtime milestones with your children

Oct 31, 2022

01:06:22

Dr. B sits down with Dawn Winkelmann, a Speech-Language Pathologist and Pediatric Feeding Therapist specializing in infant swallowing. She is the co-author of the book Making Mealtime EZPZ, featured on The View and Shark Tank.

Dawn is also the product designer for EZPZ, a company that offers developmental feeding tools to help children feed independently and meet critical milestones.

Dawn provides in-home feeding therapy and online coaching through her private practice, helping parents start solids safely with the baby-led weaning (BLW) approach. She also teaches techniques to help with picky eating, tube feeding, children with special needs (Autism, Down syndrome, etc.), and medically-compromised children who struggle to eat various foods and liquids.

Dawn talks about the moment she grew tired of seeing the same mistakes repeated again and again regarding how babies, toddlers, and even college kids eat and drink—mistakes that stunt facial development. She had witnessed “all of these delays, damages, and disorders that come from the abuse and misuse of everyday feeding products.”

At the same time, Dawn understood the difficulty that medical providers faced in explaining to parents what their child is supposed to be doing, without having the products to support what they are being asked to do. So she decided to invent those products herself.

She offers her best strategies to help your baby graduate from bottle feeding to open-cup drinking, as well as wean them off a pacifier and introduce alternative ways to self-soothe.

Key Points From This Episode:

● Introducing today’s topic: Inventing products that facilitate kids’ independent feeding [02:33]

● Why babies shouldn’t rely on bottle-feeding from 4-9 months of age [07:31]

● Getting your child off the baby bottle [12:35]

● The difference in developmental timing between open-cup drinking to straw drinking [22:45]

● How to alter your children’s straws if ezpz is not available in your country [31:24]

● When a child should start eating solid foods [34:15]

● Weaning your baby off a pacifier [38:49]

● Your child’s mealtime milestones [50:09]

Pre-feeding activities checklist

go.msdawnslp.com/PreFeedingChecklist

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