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My memory isn't too great, but I think I've read that bonding happens with eye contact, movement, laughter, sweets, and a couple other things I forget.
Many of the usual childhood games are good bonding activities, like patty-cake, 'this little piggy', that sort of game where you are engaged with the child and having fun. If the child isn't afraid of being swung around that is a good game. Batting a balloon back and forth is fun. Facing each other bouncing a ball back and forth.
There is a book called Theraplay which is deadly dull to read, but has some nice activities in the appendix, such as sticking cotton balls on each other's noses with a drop of lotion and then taking turns blowing them off, or each having a cotton ball and crawling across the room blowing your cotton balls in a sort of race. Putting a donut on your finger and having the child see how many bites it takes to break the circle. Drawing around the child's hand or foot or their whole body, making verbal contact while you draw, such as 'I'm coming to your ankle', etc.
Eye signal game. Hold hands and face each other, use eye signals to indicate direction and number of steps, such as wink left eye twice to indicate both you and the child take two steps to your left.
Measure parts of the child with fruit roll tape and then let them eat it, like measure their smile or their ear and then let them eat that, and so forth, saying things like 'this is just the size of your smile'.
The book Attaching in Adoption has some bonding information. Bottle feeding the child (even if they are beyond that age) is a good bonding activity.
Regarding the three year old wanting you to lay beside her until she falls asleep, I'd think she has lost so many moms that she really needs that until she feels more secure. My daughter used to totally fall apart if I left the room before she fell asleep, and she was much older (she came as a foster child when she was 7 yrs old). Even now that she is 11 she frequently wants me to come in and read to her until she falls asleep. Children with trauma and loss issues aren't 'spoiled' by wanting comfort at bedtime, in my opinion they have a genuine need.
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