Holly Tickner, Next Bite SP

Home
Australia
Perth, WA
Holly Tickner, Next Bite SP

Directions Website

Holly is a Perth-based Speech Pathologist who specialises in feeding & swallowing problems.

17/09/2026

I try and change up the books on the shelf each week - here is this week’s latest line up! Not all books used in feeding therapy need to be directly about eating, and they definitely don’t need to be “therapy heavy”. Lots of these are great for the home book shelf too 🥰 Do you have any of these books? Will you be adding any to your shelf?

Comment below if you’d like the link to our Amazon store where we keep a list of all of our fave books for therapy 📚🤓✨

15/09/2026

Oral motor exercises and stretches get recommended a lot for babies with tongue tie, oral ties, feeding dysfunction and even as ‘preventative’ interventions (preventing what? I’d love to know…). In truth, we need to call them what they are - experimental interventions with little to no science to back them up. And what I see clinically are babies who have developed feeding problems BECAUSE of these interventions.

I know a lot of people are well intentioned with recommending these exercises but I would ask that you stop and take a moment to reflect on the potential negative impact for some babies. Health professionals need to be providing all the information to parents about the experimental nature of the exercises and the risks involved so that parents understand what they are undertaking. This is also a shout out to parents to ask their health provider if they are infant mental health trained, not just trained in oral facial myology. These exercises are not detrimental for all babies but like any health intervention you don’t want your baby to be in that unlucky minority!

14/09/2026

Social media relies on catching your attention. In the world of feeding therapy and dysphagia, often the way clinicians do that is by promising fixes. Fixing chewing, fixing bottle aversion, fixing sucking coordination issues… and so often the ‘fix’ = oral motor exercises, often using oral motor tools.

I *wish* they worked how people promised they do. But our bodies are much more complicated than that! Especially little bodies that are developing new motor skills. So be cautious about arbitrary exercises and be curious like the parent I was chatting with today - ask questions always!

26/08/2026

Hey! 👋 Starting solids with your baby is supposed to be fun, not overwhelming!! You’d think with all this access to information like social media and apps and AI that it would make it easier to know what to do, but somehow it makes it so much harder!! We hear you, we get it, and so we’ve made you a free quick-start guide with all the main info you need from our Dietitians and Feeding Therapists. Want a copy? Check out our website or let me know below and I’ll DM you the link 😄🥄✨

24/08/2026

And I wouldn’t have it any other way 😜

Happy Speech Pathology Week to all my gorgeous speechie colleagues out there doing all the random jobs that we do! These days if someone asks me what do Speech Language Pathologists do I just gesture enthusiastically around my head and neck and say “We work with this part of the body” because else do I explain that we work with brains and throats and mouths and voice boxes and tongues and palates and lips and ears and…! 💫

23/08/2026

We just can’t get enough of evidence-based oral motor feeding therapy… and neither can you apparently! After a sold out run in May, we have brought back our popular Evidence-Based Oral Motor Feeding Therapy workshop because so many of you missed out and asked us very nicely if we could run it again. So we said yes! 🙌

Dr Katherine Sanchez from Protea Therapy and Holly Tickner from Next Bite Perth Feeding Therapists are teaming up to bring you a full day packed to the brim with practical, clinically useful strategies and tools that are all backed by science. 🔬👩🏻‍🔬 If you find yourself wondering “Should I be using chewy tubes?” Or “How do I improve jaw strength?” Or even “How do I treat chewing issues??” then this is the course for you. Places will be limited so don’t miss out (again!). This workshop won’t be running again this year.

Want to learn more about it? Comment CHEWY below and Holly will send you the link ✨🫧🥄

21/08/2026

Dummy (or pacifier) weaning can be triiiicky. Not all kids cope with a cold turkey approach!

If you’ve weaned your kids off dummies, what advice would you give to other parents?

18/08/2026

Okay folks I realise this is *not* my usual content. Occasionally I get approached by brands to collaborate and I have to say generally they aren’t a good match for Next Bite and so we politely decline. But when HOPR XHALE asked if they could send me a sample box of their non-alcoholic beverages I stopped and thought “wait a gosh darn second. Our business doesn’t need these. But you know who would like these? Probably one of my followers”

So here we are! They’ve kindly two sample packs each containing a mix of 10 different flavoured bevvies. I want to give them away to two of you! This giveaway isn’t part of a collab or anything, they’ve literally just sent me the drinks and I just want to give them to a parent or health professional who needs a little treat. Because don’t we all deserve a little treat at the moment?!

To enter all you need to do is:
🌞 Be following me
🌞 Be able to collect from our Kingsley or Myaree office if you win
🌞 Leave a comment below!

This isn’t associated with instagram or HOPR XHALE and is of my own doing. Please note the drinks may contain ingredients not suitable for pregnant or breastfeeding folk.

I’ll draw the winners Friday evening 21st August 2026. Cheers 🍻 ☺️

15/08/2026

We are so excited to be bringing the Paediatric Dysphagia Masterclass Series BACK for 2026 and this time it is looking 💫shinier💫 and ✨sparklier✨ than ever! Now available as on ON DEMAND online course that you can learn at your own pace, with six months access (!) and almost NINE hours of content. Plus more resources and references than you can poke an (IDDSI approved) syringe at.

Holly Tickner from Next Bite Perth Feeding Therapists and Dr Katherine Sanchez from Protea Therapy will be guiding you through the complicated topics of:
🥤 Thickeners & thickener weaning
📋 Assessment, outcome measures, documentation & reporting
🫣 Eating & Drinking with Acknowledged Risk (EDAR)
🦷 Oral hygiene for dysphagic kids

We LOVE the content in this course and are absolutely delighted to be able to offer it in this new format so that you can dive in, no matter your time zone or location in the world! 🌍 Say you’ll be there? Comment DYSPHAGIA and Holly will manually send you the details (because we refuse to pay yet another subscription 🥲) or check out the link in our bio.

(This course is for Speech & Language Pathologists with intermediate level clinical skills and beyond, but if you are a new grad or early career SLP you are still welcome to access the seminars)

10/08/2026

Nothing aesthetic about this particular dinner photo. Tbh I don’t think any of my family’s dinners would be picked for an influencer campaign or product promo 😂 But I want to know - what do you call this type of dinner in your house? You know those dinners where you have a rummage through the fridge and the freezer, use what you’ve got, nothing quite goes together, no plates match and it’s not even cohesive enough to call it a ‘grazing board’. 😅 Is it a ‘picky tea’? ‘Fend for yourself’ dinner? ‘Buffet style’ or ‘pick a plate’? I’d love to know!

This particular smash-up of a dinner included everything from hummus to BBQ pork buns, and even a whole Roma tomato in there to boot.

Does your family love this style of eating? What’s it called at your place? 💕 🍽️

Address

Myaree
Perth, WA
6154

Website

http://www.nextbitefeeding.com.au/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Holly Tickner, Next Bite SP posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.