This paper is about the sort of preventive work which can be carried out in early child care settings where incipient disturbance can be picked up and worked with promptly and effectively. It shows how toddler groups and nurseries can offer relationships and experiences which encourage mutuality and progressive development, while at the same time addressing difficulties before they have become fully internalized. It gives a detailed account of work with a single mother and her son who attended first a toddler group run by a child psychotherapist and her trainee assistant, and then a nursery where staff were in regular consultation with the child psychotherapist who also worked individually with the mother. It argues that the effectiveness of such early interventions can be conceptualized in terms of supplying maternal and paternal functioning at a time when children and parents alike are particularly needful of and responsive to this sort of help.