Penelope Jane Leach CBE (née Balchin; born 19 November 1937) is a British psychologist who researches and writes extensively on parenting issues from a child development perspective.
Leach notes in the introduction to that book: "Whatever you are doing, however you are coping, if you listen to your child and to your own feelings, there will be something you can actually do to put things right or make the best of those that are wrong."
[2] Her current research, writing and teaching focuses on contemporary infant neuroscience which in some areas is producing evidence where formerly there were only ideas and opinions.
She is a senior research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck, University of London, and of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust (1997–).
Each section includes information on expected developmental milestones and patterns in the areas of sleep, eating, "crying and comforting", speech, and physical growth.
The popularity of Your Baby and Child led to a television series of the same name on the American cable TV channel Lifetime, which Leach wrote and hosted.
[6] However, The Essential First Year, published in 2010, has a chapter called "Thinking about working outside your home" which says "Your baby will flourish without you while you are at work as long as he passes seamlessly from your loving care to someone elses and back again on your return...." After the release of her book Family Breakdown, Leach asserted that there was "undisputed evidence" that sleepovers with a divorced father, who is not the child's primary caregiver, can cause 'emotional damage' to a baby or toddler.