Why Oral Function Matters More Than You Think (For Sleep, Feeding & Development)

Have you ever found yourself lying awake at night listening to your child snore, mouth wide open, tossing and turning? Or maybe you've sat across the table from a toddler who will happily crunch through a packet of crackers but flatly refuses to touch a piece of steak? Or perhaps you've noticed your child's teeth look a little crowded, a little crooked, even before their adult teeth have come through, and you've wondered quietly to yourself: is that normal?

If any of that sounds familiar, this one's for you.

In a recent episode of the Thriving Parenting Podcast, I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Mel Van Schelven, Oral Health Therapist, Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist, and founder of The Face Place. Mel works with families across Australia to uncover the root causes behind crowded teeth, mouth breathing, disrupted sleep, and fussy eating. And what she shared stopped me in my tracks.

The truth is, most of us have never been taught to think about the mouth as a foundation for our children's overall health. But once you understand the connection between oral function, airway, and sleep, you truly cannot un-see it.

The Mouth and the Airway Are the Same Structure

Let's start with the basics, because this blew my mind when Mel explained it.

The bones of the mouth are literally the bones of the airway. The upper jaw forms the base of the nose, houses the sinuses, and provides the structural support for the entire upper airway. The muscles of the mouth, including the tongue, the lips, and the cheeks, are the same muscles that keep the airway open during sleep.

This means that the way a child's mouth grows, the strength of their oral muscles, and the habits they develop around breathing and chewing don't just affect their smile. They affect how well they breathe, how deeply they sleep, and how regulated and settled they are across the whole day.

As Mel puts it: "We can't really separate oral function and breathing and sleep because they are one and the same."

This is foundational. And it's something most parents, and honestly most GPs, have never been told.

We've Forgotten How to Chew

Here's a statistic that will make you put down your pouch of apple and mango puree: our ancestors chewed for somewhere between three and a half to four and a half hours a day. We know this from studying ancestral skulls, looking at how developed their jaw bones were and how worn their teeth were, and from observing our closest primate relatives.

In 2026, the average person chews for about half an hour a day.

Half an hour.

The reason our ancestors chewed so much more wasn't because they were sitting around mindfully masticating. It was simply because their food required it. Dense, fibrous vegetables. Tough cuts of meat. Whole seeds and nuts. Nothing was minced, processed, or blended into a smooth consistency before it hit their plate.

Our modern diets have done something remarkable, and not entirely helpful: they've made eating incredibly easy. Soft bread, processed meats, yoghurt pouches, pasta, rice, smoothies. Even mince, which most of us consider a whole food, is technically a processed form of meat that requires far less chewing effort than eating off the bone.

The result? Our children's jaws are getting less of the muscular workout they need to grow properly. And when the jaw doesn't grow, the airway doesn't grow either.

Crunchy Is Not the Same as Chewy

One of the most practical things Mel shared, and something I've been thinking about ever since, is the distinction between crunchy and chewy foods.

When most parents think about giving their kids something to really get their teeth into, they often think of crackers, rice cakes, corn chips, or veggie crisps. These are crunchy. They shatter and dissolve quickly. They don't require sustained muscular effort from the jaw.

Chewy is different. Chewy is a piece of steak. A raw carrot stick. A tough piece of dried mango. These foods require the jaw to work repeatedly and with real effort, and that effort is what drives the muscle development that in turn shapes the bones of the face and airway.

So when you're looking at your child's plate and thinking about what's actually serving their jaw development, it's worth asking: does this food require them to really work for it? Or does it just crunch and disappear?

What Mel Is Seeing in Clinic

When Mel sees children in her practice at The Face Place, she's looking at a constellation of signs that all tell the same underlying story: the mouth isn't working as it should.

Some of the most common presentations include:

No gaps between baby teeth. This is actually a really important one, because many parents don't know that baby teeth should have gaps between them. Those gaps are the space that adult teeth need to come through. When baby teeth are already crowded, it's a strong sign that the jaw hasn't grown wide enough and adult teeth are going to have nowhere to go.

A long, flat, narrow face with loose muscle tone. When the jaw muscles aren't being exercised, the face develops differently. The muscles look underused because they are. The mouth tends to sit open, the face appears elongated, and the overall appearance is what Mel describes as "low and loose."

Mouth breathing. If your child regularly breathes through their mouth, during the day, during sleep, or both, that's a signal worth investigating. Nasal breathing is what our bodies are designed for. It filters air, humidifies it, and uses the full capacity of the lungs. Mouth breathing bypasses all of that, and over time it also changes the resting position of the tongue and contributes to further narrowing of the airway.

Snoring and restless sleep. Children are not supposed to snore. If your child is snoring, waking frequently, sleeping in unusual positions, or grinding their teeth, these can all be signs of airway obstruction during sleep.

Fussy eating or a very limited diet. Sometimes kids who aren't chewing much genuinely can't chew much. Not because they're being difficult, but because their oral muscles lack the strength and coordination. This can be tangled up with sensory sensitivities and other factors, but oral function is often a missing piece of the puzzle.

The "Food Before One Is Just for Fun" Myth

You've probably heard this phrase. It's well-intentioned. The idea is that breast milk or formula is the primary nutrition source in the first year, and solids are more about exploration than sustenance.

But Mel is clear that this framing can be genuinely problematic when it leads parents to conclude that nothing meaningful needs to happen with solid food before twelve months.

From a chewing development perspective, the first year is a critical window. The exposure babies get to different textures, the practice they get with moving food around their mouths, and the muscle development that begins with early solids all lay the groundwork for the jaw growth that follows.

From a nutritional perspective, we now know that iron is one of the most critical nutrients for babies in the second half of their first year, and breast milk alone can't provide enough of it. Meat eaten in age-appropriate ways, think soft strips, meat off the bone, or small tender pieces rather than puree, is one of the richest sources of iron available.

Getting early solid introduction right isn't just about nutrition. It's also about building the oral motor foundations that will serve your child for life.

Dummies and Thumb Sucking: The Nuanced Truth

This is the part of the conversation that I think a lot of parents will be relieved to hear, because it's not black and white.

Mel is very clear: dummies and thumb sucking don't automatically cause problems. What matters is intensity, frequency, and duration.

A dummy used occasionally for comfort during the first six months and then gently phased out is unlikely to cause lasting dental changes. A dummy that's in a child's mouth all night, every night, for two or three years is a different story. The sustained pressure reshapes bone. The jaw literally remodels around the object that's constantly pressing against it, which is why you see the characteristic open bite in children who've had prolonged dummy use. This is where the front teeth don't meet when the back teeth bite together.

The same goes for thumb sucking. Some children use their thumb occasionally, self-soothe for a few minutes, and grow out of it by age three with barely a trace of change to their teeth. Others develop a strong, persistent habit with significant force, and you can see the impact on their bite long before they start school.

Mel's approach with her own daughter, who was a thumb sucker, was gentle and developmentally appropriate. She avoided shame-based language like "that's for babies" and instead focused on offering alternatives, particularly chewing products that gave her daughter the same oral sensory input without the dental impact. She also read books like Thumbs Up Brown Bear to open up the conversation in a child-friendly way.

And crucially, she knew when to back off. If a child is also struggling with airway issues, big tonsils, disrupted sleep, and emotional dysregulation, the thumb might actually be serving a genuine physiological purpose, helping them manage their airway position during sleep. In those cases, Mel says, the thumb is the least of your worries. Get the bigger issues addressed first, and then revisit the habit.

When Should You Seek an Assessment?

One of the questions I get asked most often by parents is some version of: how do I know if what I'm seeing is actually a problem?

Mel's answer is reassuringly simple: if something is nagging at you, come in. She works with children from one year of age, and she's genuinely happy to see families even when concerns seem mild.

But here are some specific signs she says warrant an assessment:

• Your child's baby teeth have no gaps between them

• Your child snores, breathes through their mouth at night, or sleeps in unusual positions

• Your child is a persistent thumb or dummy sucker past age three and you've tried to wind it down without success

• You're noticing a very limited diet and your child struggles with the mechanics of chewing, not just refusing foods but genuinely seeming unable to manage certain textures

• You've seen a GP or paediatrician about airway or sleep concerns and been told everything is fine, but your gut says otherwise

That last point is worth sitting with for a moment.

Why Your GP Probably Can't Help With This

Mel was thoughtful and balanced in how she talked about the medical system. She's not anti-doctor, not anti-medicine, and she's at pains to point that out. But she also holds a really important truth that every parent deserves to hear.

Medicine, by its nature, operates within a fairly narrow toolkit: pharmaceuticals and surgery. It's phenomenally good at what it does. But when it comes to functional issues like the way a child breathes, chews, positions their tongue, or develops the muscles and bones of their face, the medical model often has very little to offer.

A paediatrician who hasn't done additional training in orofacial development is likely to have minimal knowledge in this area. ENT specialists, who many families see about tonsils and adenoids, will generally offer what they're trained to offer: surgical removal. That might be the right answer in some cases. But it often doesn't address the underlying reasons the tonsils became enlarged in the first place, and many families find that symptoms return or persist even after surgery.

The broader allied health community is where a lot of this work actually happens. Oral health therapists, orofacial myofunctional therapists, speech pathologists with feeding therapy training, and lactation consultants trained in orofacial biology are the practitioners who look at the full picture. And most parents have no idea these professionals even exist.

Knowing where to go for what is genuinely empowering. As Mel says: where you go is what you will get. If you go to a surgeon, they will offer you surgery.

The Two Things Parents Are Most Confused About Right Now

When I asked Mel what she sees parents most confused about online and in her practice, she didn't hesitate: tongue ties and tonsils.

The world of tongue ties is, in her words, "a wild west." There are forums full of parents being told categorically that tongue tie treatment will solve everything, and others being told just as confidently that it's unnecessary and harmful. Meanwhile, parents whose babies have moved into toddlerhood with an unresolved tongue tie often find they're in limbo. They can't find anyone willing to treat it, and they're not being given any other options.

With tonsils, she often sees families who are uncomfortable with the idea of surgery but aren't being offered any alternatives by the medical professionals they're seeing. They want someone to look at the whole picture: why the tonsils are big, what effect it's having, what other practitioners should be involved. Rather than being fast-tracked to an operating table, they want a conversation.

This is exactly the kind of holistic, root-cause approach that Mel brings to her work, and it's why families seek her out.

What You Can Do Starting Today

Here's the part I love most about Mel's approach: she doesn't make this feel overwhelming. She brings it right back to the dinner table.

Audit your child's diet. Honestly look at what they're eating day to day. Are the majority of foods soft, processed, or served in a pouch? Or are there genuinely chewy options available, like raw vegetable sticks, meat off the bone, whole fruits, and tougher textures that require real effort? You don't need to overhaul everything overnight. Just start noticing.

Look at your own plate too. Are you eating the same chewy, whole foods you'd like your child to eat? Are you chewing properly, around twenty times per mouthful? Kids learn by watching. If you're inhaling your dinner in five minutes while staring at your phone, your child is picking that up too.

Make the dinner table a good place to be. Connection, calm, and the right food on offer. That's the trifecta. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be intentional.

Talk about chewing. We talk to our kids about washing their hands, brushing their teeth, and eating their vegetables. We can also talk to them about chewing. Something as simple as "this food takes lots of chewing and that's so good for your jaw" is enough. Matter-of-fact, no big deal.

Trust your instincts. If something feels off about your child's sleep, breathing, eating, or teeth, don't wait until it becomes a crisis. Seek out a practitioner who looks at the whole picture.

The Bottom Line

The growth and function of your child's mouth is incredibly important, and unfortunately it's something most parents won't hear about until they're facing an orthodontist's bill or sitting in a surgeon's waiting room.

But you don't have to wait until things reach that point. The foundations of a healthy airway, a well-developed jaw, and strong oral muscles are laid in the earliest years of life through what your child eats, how they chew, how they breathe, and the habits they develop around sleep and self-soothing.

Get the mouth right, and so much else follows: breathing, sleep, digestion, regulation, mood, and development. It's not a small thing. It might just be the most important thing nobody is talking about.

About Mel Van Schelven

Mel Van Schelven is an Oral Health Therapist, Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist, and founder of The Face Place. She works with families Australia-wide through one-on-one consultations and digital resources to uncover the reasons behind crowded teeth, mouth breathing, and disrupted sleep. Mel is passionate about holistic health, early intervention, and patient-centred care.

• Instagram: @thefaceplace_oht

• Website & Consultations: thefaceplaceofm.com.au

• Foundations for Growing Faces Masterclass: thefaceplaceofm.com.au/foundations-for-growing-faces-masterclass

This article is based on Episode 111 of the Thriving Parenting Podcast. If you'd like support with your baby's sleep, book a free Sleep Clarity Session with Jen via the link in the show notes.