For children's books you have to catch the attention of the child and get them emotionally involved in the story. Especially with kids and feelings, you need to express early in the story the characters and their stories
Well if I could I would do this full time but can't do that write now. I would give up going to Starbucks and spending more money on my work and getting self published.
I have always enjoyed writing and the past 5 years have been involved in taking writing classes and going to local writing group annual conference. I decided last year to write a children's book. I have learned a lot and am getting support from co-workers and friends.
Find time for yourself and making it enjoyable. You have to just insometimes free write and let the words flow. I think that is where I have done my best writing. I took a class one time and they gave us a prompt and it was right about my mother had passed away. I wrote the most beautiful story in line 5 minutes of the last day with my mother. I edited it a bit but I just said the emotions flow and it was just what I needed to do to get in down in writing how I was feeling and the emotion and feelings of that time in my life.