Picture a family in Fishtown. It’s a slow Saturday morning, the baby is finally napping, and their two-year-old is curled up on the couch with a book. Mom glances over and notices something she has never really thought about: her toddler’s lips are apart, and the tongue is resting low, almost on the bottom teeth. A friend at the playground recently mentioned her baby “had a tongue tie,” and now she’s wondering. Is that just how kids sit, or is it something?
Have you ever stopped to think about where your child’s tongue rests when they’re not eating or talking? Most parents haven’t, but it’s one of the first things we notice here at B.well tots. That’s where Week 3 of Breathe, Grow, B.well is headed: no scare tactics, just a little growing awareness.
The Tongue’s Quiet Job
We think of the tongue as the thing that helps us eat and talk. But it also has a quiet job that runs all day and night: resting.
The resting spot we love to see is the tongue lifted up against the roof of the mouth, lips gently closed, and breathing quietly through the nose. We call this oral rest posture. When the tongue rests up high, it gently supports the shape of the palate as it grows and makes nose breathing the easy default. When it rests low, the mouth often falls open too, which is why tongue posture and the open-mouth habit we talked about in Nose or Mouth? so often go together.
This isn’t only a baby thing. The tongue keeps doing this work through the toddler and preschool years and into big-kid life.
What “Tethered Oral Tissues” Means (and Why Not Every Tie Needs a Release)
Tethered oral tissues, or TOTs, is the umbrella term for the little bands of tissue under the tongue, lips, and cheeks (the frenula) when they’re tight or short enough to limit how those parts move. A tongue tie is the one most people have heard of.
Here’s the part I wish more parents heard first: not all ties need to be released. Everyone has frenula. What matters is how the tongue works: can it lift, stretch, cup, and move side to side well enough for feeding, rest posture, and, later, chewing and speech? That’s what we mean by function over anatomy. A tie that looks dramatic can work just fine, and a tie that looks small can make feeding really hard.
When a release is the right call, it can make a real difference, and the body does best with support before and after. If you want a deeper dive, we’ve written more in Tethered Oral Tissues and Oral Dysfunction.
Signs Worth a Closer Look
One open-mouth afternoon during a cold is just little-kid life. What we look for is a pattern over time. These are worth having someone check (no panic needed):
Feeding that feels like a fight: a painful or shallow latch, clicking, milk leaking out the sides, long feeds, or a baby who seems hungry again quickly
Lips apart most of the day, even when your child isn’t stuffy
A tongue that rests low or pushes forward between the lips at rest
Noisy breathing or snoring during sleep, or restless, sweaty sleep
Toddler eating struggles: pocketing food, gagging on textures, very messy eating, or avoiding foods that need lots of chewing
Body tension: a tight neck or jaw, a strong preference for turning the head one way, or a baby who seems to hold tension everywhere
Any one of these on its own isn’t a diagnosis. Put together, they’re a good reason for a functional look.
What a Functional Look Actually Includes
A functional assessment sounds official, but it's really a careful, whole-child look at how everything works together. At B.well tots, that means we're not only peeking under the tongue. We watch your baby or toddler eat, we look at latch and suck (or chewing and drinking in older kids), how the tongue moves and where it rests, jaw and lip strength, breathing, body tension and posture, and early reflexes like rooting and sucking.
Our team offers comprehensive feeding support, so for babies we often pair infant OT with lactation support, because a hard feed is rarely just about the mouth. You can read more about that in our post on painful latch and on our infant feeding and TOTs page. If a release turns out to be part of the plan, therapy beforehand prepares the body, and therapy afterward helps the tongue learn to use its new range. Sometimes the work we do together means a release isn't needed at all, and that's always a goal worth having.
Simple Ways to Support Tongue Posture at Home
No special tools needed. A few everyday habits go a long way:
- Lots of tummy time and floor play. Head, neck, and trunk control give the jaw and tongue a stable base to work from.
- Offer age-appropriate textures. Once your child is ready for solids, foods that invite chewing give the tongue and jaw real practice.
- Try an open cup or a straw. Both ask the lips and tongue to work in a way a constant sippy-cup spout doesn't.
- Play with silly mouth games. Licking yogurt off the lips, "clicking" like a horse, blowing bubbles, and making faces in the mirror are all great tongue workouts for toddlers.
- Notice resting time. During books or shows, just peek. Lips closed and quiet nose breathing? Lovely. Mouth open most of the time? Make a mental note.
Here at B.well
Remember our Fishtown family on the couch? That low tongue might just be a relaxed toddler, or one small piece of a bigger picture that includes feeding, sleep, and breathing. The way to know is to look at the whole child, not just a little band of tissue.
Here at B.well tots, our therapists see babies, toddlers, and older kids for feeding, tongue function, and airway-friendly habits in our Fishtown, Fairmount, and Wyndmoor offices, with daytime sessions that fit around naps. For speech-related questions, our speech therapy team looks at tongue function too, and for big kids and teens, myofunctional therapy keeps building on the same foundations.
If you've been quietly wondering about your little one's tongue, you don't have to figure it out alone. Book a 15-min virtual consult and we'll talk it through together, one Philly family to another.
This post is for educational purposes and isn't a substitute for individualized medical advice.