You know that your toddler needed love and approval but he often seemed not to care whether he got it or not and never seemed to know how to earn it. Your pre-school child is positively asking you to tell him what does and does not earn approval, so he is ready to learn any social refinement of being human which you will teach him....He knows now that he wants your love and he has learned how to ask for it.
Penelope LeachLoving a baby is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give the more you get and the more you get the more you feel like giving.
Penelope LeachThere is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.
Penelope LeachYour toddler will be "good" if he feels like doing what you happen to want him to do and does not happen to feel like doing anything you would dislike. With a little cleverness you can organize life as a whole, and issues in particular, so that you both want the same thing most of the time.
Penelope LeachA baby who cannot relax can be helped to do so by a variety of constant rhythmical stimuli. it will work if the trouble is some kind of general and diffuse irritability or tenseness which is preventing a tired baby relaxing into sleep. The burring sound of a fan or heater works excellently. So does the sound of a car engine.
Penelope Leach