Lakewood’s tongue tie, sleep, and airway specialists. Infants through adults.
What’s Covered on This Page
- What You’re Noticing: Clicking Sounds, Feeding Struggles, or a Tight-Looking Tongue
- What You’ve Probably Been Told About Waiting It Out
- What’s Happening: Why Tongue-Tie Tissue Doesn’t Loosen With Growth
- Why does my 8-year-old still wet the bed even though he’s potty trained?
- Can adults get a tongue-tie released, or is it too late by then?
- Is snoring always a sign of sleep apnea?
- How do I know if my child is mouth breathing at night?
- When should I stop waiting and get an evaluation?
- Does Lakewood’s dry climate make snoring or mouth breathing worse?
Need Can Tongue-Tie Heal or Release Naturally Without Surgery?
Call (720) 783-5424 to book an airway evaluation
What You’re Noticing: Clicking Sounds, Feeding Struggles, or a Tight-Looking Tongue
Quick Summary: A tongue-tie is a tight band of tissue under the tongue that restricts movement, and it won’t loosen up on its own as your baby grows. Clicking during feeds, slow weight gain, or a tongue that looks heart-shaped when your baby cries are all worth getting checked, not waiting out.
It’s 2am and you’re on your fourth feeding attempt of the night. Your baby latches, pulls off, cries, then latches again. Every few sucks, you hear that click. Your shirt is soaked, so is theirs. You’ve brought it up with your pediatrician twice, and both times the answer was some version of ‘let’s give it more time.’
That clicking happens because the tongue can’t hold a steady seal against the roof of the mouth. Picture a suction cup: if the string underneath is too short or too tight, the cup never presses flat. Air slips in, and that’s the sound you’re hearing.
Feeds that drag on past 30 or 40 minutes and still end with a fussy baby usually trace back to the same issue. Your little one is working far harder than they should just to get enough milk, and that extra effort burns calories they need for growing, not just eating.
- Clicking or smacking sounds during bottle or breastfeeding
- Feeds lasting 40 minutes or more with little weight gain to show for it
- A tongue that looks heart-shaped or notched at the tip when your baby cries
- Trouble sticking the tongue past the lower lip or lifting it toward the roof of the mouth
- Sore, cracked, or blistered nipples that don’t improve no matter how the latch is adjusted
We see Lakewood parents who’ve already gone through three lactation consultants and two nipple shield brands before anyone even mentions the tongue itself. That’s not something you did wrong. It’s a sign the real cause got missed along the way.
Older kids show it differently. Picky eating, gagging on certain textures, struggling to lick an ice cream cone, or speech sounds that never quite click into place, think ‘l’ and ‘r’, can all trace back to a tongue that never learned to move freely.
A tight tongue at 3 months old is still a tight tongue at 3 years old. It doesn’t loosen up just because time passes.
What You’ve Probably Been Told About Waiting It Out
You’ve probably already heard some version of this. Your pediatrician took a two-second look and said, “He’ll grow out of it.” A lactation consultant shrugged it off, saying lots of babies have a little tightness under the tongue. Maybe an orthodontist told your teenager it’s “just a lip tie,” nothing to worry about. So you waited. Weeks turned into months, and the clicking never went away.
We hear this story almost every week from Lakewood parents sitting in our chairs. Here’s the thing: that wait-and-see advice usually comes from good intentions, not bad ones. It’s just often based on a misunderstanding of what tongue-tie tissue actually is.
- “It’ll stretch out as he grows.”
- “Lots of babies have a little tightness, it’s normal.”
- “Let’s wait until teeth come in before we worry about it.”
- “She’s gaining weight fine, so it can’t be that big a deal.”
- “It’s just cosmetic, nothing to fix.”
Here’s why that advice doesn’t hold up once you look at the tissue itself. The band under the tongue, called the frenulum, is fascia. Fascia doesn’t stretch the way a rubber band does with use. It behaves more like a rope tied a little too short: it can pull and cause strain, but it won’t lengthen on its own just because time goes by.
A tethered tongue simply can’t reach the roof of the mouth where it belongs. That’s not a growth problem, it’s a mechanical one. A baby might get better at working around the restriction, but the restriction itself usually stays exactly where it was.
This is exactly why so many parents end up in our office months, sometimes years, after that first “wait and see.” A mom whose infant never gained weight fast enough. A dad whose son still can’t get through dinner without gagging on textures. An adult who was told as a kid it was nothing, and now deals with jaw tension every single day.
If any of that sounds familiar, it might be time to look past the wait-and-see advice and get a real look at what’s happening. You can learn more about how we evaluate and treat tongue-tie on our main service page for infant tongue tie release, where we walk through what an actual assessment involves.
None of this means every tight-looking frenulum needs treatment. But if feeding is a daily struggle, or speech and airway concerns keep showing up, waiting longer rarely changes the tissue on its own.
What’s Happening: Why Tongue-Tie Tissue Doesn’t Loosen With Growth
You’ve probably heard it before, someone telling you the tongue-tie will loosen up once your baby grows a bit more, or that kids just grow out of it. We hear this constantly at our Lakewood office, usually from a parent who’s exhausted and just wants a straight answer.
Here’s the honest mechanical answer. The tissue under the tongue, called the lingual frenulum, is made of dense fibrous tissue. It doesn’t behave like a rubber band that stretches with use. Think of it more like a rope already tied in a knot, growth pulls on it, but the knot itself doesn’t loosen.
A baby’s mouth gets bigger every month, sure. But bigger doesn’t mean more flexible. If the tongue can’t lift to the roof of the mouth now, adding size to the jaw won’t change that restriction, it just makes the gap between where the tongue should reach and where it actually reaches more obvious.
- The tongue still can’t lift fully to the roof of the mouth during feeding or swallowing
- Latch stays shallow or clicky even after weeks of practice and lactation support
- Gagging or choking continues because the tongue can’t manage milk flow properly
- In older kids, spacing between lower front teeth or a heart-shaped tongue tip persists
This is why waiting rarely fixes the underlying problem on its own. A narrow palate crowds the space above it the same way a tethered tongue can’t reach the space it’s supposed to fill. Neither situation resolves just because a child gets older, both usually need the tissue itself addressed.
We’re not saying every case needs treatment right away. Some ties are mild and never cause a real problem. But if you’re dealing with painful feeds, a stalled weight check, or a school-age kid who still can’t touch their tongue to the roof of their mouth, growth alone probably isn’t going to solve it.
If you want to see what an evaluation looks like, our team walks through it in detail on our tongue-tie release page, including what we check for and why.
Call (720) 783-5424
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about Can Tongue-Tie Heal or Release Naturally Without Surgery?
Can stretches, bodywork, or exercises loosen a tongue-tie without a release?
They can improve how well the tongue works within its current limits, and for a mild restriction that is sometimes enough. What they do not do is lengthen the frenulum itself. Craniosacral work and myofunctional exercises release the muscle tension that built up around the restriction, which is real and worth addressing, but the band of fascia stays the length it was. If feeding or speech problems persist after weeks of that work, the tissue is usually still the limiting factor.
Does every tight-looking frenulum need to be released?
No. Some ties are mild, cause no feeding or speech problem, and never need anything done. What matters is function rather than appearance, meaning whether the tongue can lift to the roof of the mouth, move side to side, and cup around the breast or bottle. A tie that looks dramatic can be functionally fine, and a posterior tie that is barely visible can cause serious feeding trouble. Our infant tongue-tie release page covers what a functional assessment actually checks.
What happens if we wait until my child is two or three?
The tissue stays as it is. What changes is the set of compensations built around it. Older children develop jaw and cheek patterns to work around a tongue that cannot reach where it should, and those patterns take longer to retrain after a release than they would have in infancy. Release is still possible at any age, but it usually comes with more therapy afterward. For infants the harder cost of waiting is feeding, since supply and weight gain are affected in real time.
Can a tongue-tie grow back or reattach after a release?
Partial reattachment can happen when the healing tissue closes over before the site has settled, which is why gentle stretches four to six times a day for about two weeks are part of the aftercare. Done consistently, reattachment is uncommon. Our walkthrough of the first two weeks after an infant release covers what the healing site should look like day by day and when to call.
My baby is gaining weight fine. Does that mean the tie is not a problem?
Not by itself. Weight gain is one measure, and plenty of babies gain adequately while working far harder than they should to do it, sometimes at the cost of your supply and your comfort. Long feeds, clicking, and nipple damage matter even when the scale looks acceptable. Our guide on tongue tie symptoms in babies covers the signs that get missed when weight gain looks normal.
My pediatrician and my lactation consultant disagree. Who is right?
The disagreement usually comes down to method. A routine exam looks at appearance for a few seconds. A lactation consultant watches a full feed and assesses how the tongue works. Both providers want the same outcome for your baby. A functional assessment is what settles it, and it is worth knowing that waiting does not change the tissue while you decide. Our article on tongue tie support near Edgewater and Sloan’s Lake covers how the two roles fit together.
When should I stop waiting and get an evaluation?
Get an evaluation once feeding is a daily struggle rather than an occasional hard session, or when speech and oral movement concerns keep coming up in an older child. Waiting rarely changes the tissue, and feeding problems compound while you wait, since a shallow latch means less milk transferred, which means less supply, which makes the next feed harder. If you have already been told to give it more time and nothing has improved, that is usually the point to look closer.
If we do go ahead with a release, what do the first two weeks look like?
Most babies nurse within minutes of the release itself. Mild fussiness and soft feeding are normal in the first day or two, and short stretches are done a few times daily to keep the area healing open. Feeding coordination often takes a couple of weeks to fully settle, which surprises parents expecting an overnight change. Our walkthrough of the first two weeks after an infant release covers what to expect day by day.
Ready to Get Started?
Call (720) 783-5424 to book an airway evaluation.
