Yes - we have a doctor on our medical advisory council. In addition, our clinical team consists of a Feeding Therapist, a Registered Dietitian, a Parent Coach, and a Mental Health Counselor – all of whom are licensed appropriately in their fields. Learn more about our team here.

(Note: Parent Coaches don’t require licenses)

Yes! Check out our testimonials page to hear how our program has worked for other families from a variety of backgrounds. We have over a 95% success rate when families work together with the therapist. A handful of families have had to stop their wean due to illness or unexpected medical events.

All of our plans are individualized and tailored to the specific needs of each child and family. To us, a child has weaned successfully when that child is able to eat and drink 100% of the volume that is safe and developmentally appropriate for that child.

To us, success is when the entire family is enjoying meals together. This means that the child is happily eating foods of enough variety to satisfy their age-appropriate needs, in a relaxed, joyful family setting; parents/caregivers are able to let go of the medicalized feeding paradigm that exists with tube feeding, and the family moves into a typical feeding format with confidence in reading the child’s cues and a focus on the social, fun aspects of mealtime.

We have designed our program to avoid that very situation. The required Pre-Program Consultation includes two hours of conversation (one hour to follow up on the intake form, and an hour one-on-one with one of our feeding consultants).

If our team doesn’t believe that a child is ready to wean, based on our free review of the intake form (for example, there are still numerous medical issues, upcoming major surgery, unsafe swallow, etc.) we let families know before they pay for the Pre-Program Consultation.

If at the Pre-Program Consultation stage, where we dig deep into feeding by speaking with parents/caregivers and reviewing videos, it seems that the child needs more time, we recommend pre-wean steps to take, either on your own, with your local therapist, or with Growing Independent Eaters. 

We know firsthand how expensive care can be for medically complex kiddos. We will always review intake forms free of charge. Our wean program costs vary depending on the level of support needed. Our wean program costs vary depending on the level of support needed.

Pre-program consultation (the prerequisite to wean program): $449

Lite Wean: $1,949

Moderate Wean: $2,549

Full Support Wean: $3,149 Find all of our pricing details here.

These consults serve different purposes. The pre-program consultation assesses how your child is doing now and gives us the chance to help you establish good pre-wean routines that will set a good foundation for the wean to come. The wean itself is a step-by-step plan towards happy, oral eating, and then your team coaches you through it!

We do not, because our services are for parent coaching and consultations, not for medical or therapy services directly for a child. However, several clients have had success in being able to use HSA/FSA funds to pay for consultations. 

No; we do not accept any kind of insurance.

Yes, we are happy to take grant funding.

We are happy to take HSA/FSA funds to pay for consultations. 

Yes! We are happy to give families the option of paying fully upfront, or of dividing their fees into payments. The payment plan splits the total cost into 4 monthly payments, with the first due at the time of setup.

We cannot split the cost on multiple cards. The best alternative payment option is PayPal or to split the cost.

Due to SplitIt’s restrictions, they are unable to secure funds from debit cards vs. credit cards for security purposes.

In the event that you wish to discontinue or cancel any services prior to the commencement of services, you may do so by providing us with a written request to cancel or discontinue services. If we receive your written notice of cancellation prior to the commencement of services then you will be refunded fifty percent (50%) of the cost of services selected if you have already paid for the services in full. The remaining fifty percent (50%) covers the administrative costs associated with your purchase. A refund will be made to you within sixty (60) days of confirmation of receipt of your cancellation. In the event that we have provided services to you, no refund shall be made upon cancellation of services.

Some good news is that the support hours you purchase with GIE never expire, and you can add any extra support time that you need. This way, we can take a “go” at weaning as many times as is safely necessary until we reach your goals.

We rarely make price adjustments, but in the event that doing so becomes necessary to cover expenses, we will be sure to honor any quoted price, so long as the purchase is made within 2 weeks of when that quote is given.*

*This does not apply to any promotions.

In our experience, after ensuring that there is no physical discomfort or fear around food, trust and comfort are present at any feeding situation, and tube-fed calories start being reduced, it takes between 2-10 days for the appetite system to come back online.

How fast this happens varies from child to child. As a side note, we do not counsel creating ravenous hunger (as that destroys comfort around food), but appetite sufficient to open the door to oral eating. Children who are already eating orally, when calm and respected in their “no” cues (no coerced feeding), often progress faster. 

The timing depends completely on the individual family but can range from 2 weeks to 3 months on average.

We don't focus on speed during a wean. Every situation is different so we don't stress a universal timeline during our consultations. Every feeding plan is designed specifically for that child and family.

If your intake is approved, you’ll be invited to purchase a pre-program consultation and then your wean program. Completing that process can take 3-4 weeks, which means that most families will have “wean in hand” in approximately that timeframe.

Depending on how your availability lines up with the availability of the specialists on your team will dictate when your first meeting will occur. Most families are able to schedule their first consultation within a week of purchasing. 

Your wean consultation includes the development of a personalized plan: how to structure meals, how to read cues, a suggested tube-feeding reduction schedule, dietitian review of feeding, and mental health support for parents. We can check in with you every day, via our Team App. We typically start off with an hour of feeding consultant time to make sure the plan makes sense and to answer any questions that come up. After that, we can exchange quick messages so that your purchased hours go a long way.

Our consultation packages are ranked by support levels, and families choose how many hours of support they want to purchase.

Our approach is similar because while infants are not verbal, they still have rich communication skills! It is all about reading a child’s cues, creating trust and parent-child bonding around food, and making sure that feeding is comfortable and calm for everyone involved. This is the same regardless of age or developmental stage.

NG tubes can definitely affect feeding, more so in older children than young infants. However, without the presence of appetite, it is hard to say whether a child’s “aversion” is fear of eating or whether it’s an understandable (and logical) refusal of food when full. Our approach centers on guiding parents to bond with their children around food, decreasing stress for everyone with techniques and ideas that are particular to each family, and then introducing appetite once feeding situations are calm. In other words, step one is to make sure that any trauma or stress that could be causing aversions is healed, and only then following with step two of initiating appetite.

GIE works with children with thousands of different diagnoses and syndromes. We do not track success by diagnoses, but rather work to make sure that every child is treated as the wonderfully unique individual that they are. Children experiencing heart conditions, Down syndrome, food and/or bottle aversions, oxygen requirements, and more have benefitted from our programs. Please fill out an intake form so we can evaluate your specific child’s situation.

By filling out our free intake form, we are able to assess whether or not your child is safe to begin a home-based weaning program. 

Absolutely. We do require that kids be able to drink safely but recognize that many aspirating children require thickening in order to do this. Our typical recommendation is to wean to the viscosity that is safe for your child, and then to address the underlying cause of aspiration after weaning. 

Every family is unique, but our team aims to provide a personalized program for your family, and we commonly work with children who have complex diagnoses. Need some more convincing? Check out our testimonials page for reviews and success stories from our weaning families.

While we provide our opinion and guidelines, your local physician or therapist should guide you in precise signs for your child. That said, we do not counsel extremely rapid reductions or reductions when a child is not responding to the initial tube decrease. Our team’s years of hands-on, clinical experience and collaboration with physicians and other caregivers have given us a solid skill set in counseling that is not only effective but SAFE. We are always happy to speak to your care providers about any concerns they may have; just let us know. 

No, our consultations are all done remotely.

Growing Independent Eaters is a fully remote team that proudly serves clients in more than 40 countries across the world.

Since all consultations are remote, we meet in a time zone that will work for both parties.

We’ve worked with children as young as 2 months up to 17 years old.

Yes, please email us at info@gieaters.com for more information on how to proceed.

Your medical provider makes the decision on tube removal. We share our opinion and insights, but the decision to remove a tube should be done in partnership with your local doctor. Again, if our therapist recommends that a child is ready for an NG tube to come out (typically with 50% oral intake or more), we are happy to speak with your medical provider about that next step if they have reservations.

That is completely up to you, depending on how much support and guidance you would like! The support hours that you purchase from us never expire, so we can support you for as long as you would like our support.

Because we created our program to be flexible to the needs and finances of individual families, post-wean support is limited only by a family’s desire for how much or little continued support they would like. We are here to walk with you for as long as you feel the need.