[KarenInCa]

Richard, those are some great tips.
It made me think of a few others as well...
Our daughter was fine with holding her, but as you said, sometimes they don't like it. It's important though to do it. If your child has difficulty with holding her and looking in her eyes while you feed her, hold her outward while giving her a bottle, and try it with a mirror in front of you so that when she looks out, she is almost forced to see you holding her, and finds comfort in it.

Also, take the child's que at first...ALWAYS. We were told by our agency to try to keep their undershirt in the crib with them when they sleep for the first night. The scent is familiar. We were also very careful about her first bath. She accepted it, although we don't think she had ever been given a real bath, at 17 months old. The water was very shallow and we moved her into the bathtub very, very slowly the first time we bathed her. We enticed her into the tub with a very small inflatable ball. She held on to that ball the entire time, as well as after the first bath.
All that said, if she were to have cried or felt uncomfortable with the bath, we would not have given it to her. Making sure she was cleaned and changed was a top priority but our first priority was making her feel comfortable and at ease. That was the most important part of the bonding process.