A 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 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 LeachChildren do not need superhuman, perfect parents. They have always managed with good enough parents: the parents they happened to have.
Penelope LeachGrown-up people do very little and say a great deal.... Toddlers say very little and do a great deal.... With a toddler you cannot explain, you have to show. You cannot send, you have to take. You cannot control with words, you have to use your body.
Penelope LeachYou 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 Leach