Birth to 12 months

A calm, research-based picture of what infants are actually doing in the first year: how they communicate long before words, how attachment forms, and what the science says about crying, sleep, feeding, and play.

Format
4 modules, 16 lessons
Length
About 3 hours, self-paced
Includes
Captions and transcripts
Price
$49 once, lifetime access
Enroll, $49 Watch a lesson free

Checkout is here, with Stripe, and the lessons live under My classes.

Figure 1. The normal crying curve. A line chart of average fussing and crying per day across a baby’s first sixteen weeks. The line rises from birth to about two hours a day, is highest in the first six weeks, then falls to about one hour a day by ten to twelve weeks and stays there. Highest: first 6 weeks About half by 3 months 2 hrs 1 hr Birth 4 wks 8 12 16 wks Fussing and crying, per day
Fig. 1 · The normal crying curve. On average, fussing and crying build after birth, are highest in the first six weeks at about two hours a day, and fall to about one hour by ten to twelve weeks. Schematic after Brazelton (1962) and the meta-analysis by Wolke, Bilgin and Samara (2017); individual babies vary widely. Module 1, lesson 4 covers what helps.

By the end of the class

The first year will feel a lot less like guessing.

  • What your baby’s brain is building in the first year, and why responsive care matters more than enrichment.
  • How to read your baby’s signals for ready, hungry, tired, and had enough.
  • How secure attachment forms through everyday moments, and why it doesn’t require perfection.
  • Realistic expectations for crying and sleep, based on the research rather than the pressure.
  • How babies build language before their first words, and how movement and play drive learning.

Four modules

For the year when everything is new.

  1. Module 1

    The Newborn Brain

    5 lessons, about 1 hour

    What newborns can already do, how experience builds the brain, the back-and-forth that shapes it, why babies cry and how to help them calm, and why a baby can be capable and fragile at the same time.

    1. 1Born Ready to Connect
    2. 2A Brain Built by Experience
    3. 3Serve and Return Free to watch
    4. 4States, Crying, and the Borrowed Nervous System
    5. 5Capable and Fragile at Once

  2. Module 2

    Reading Your Baby’s Cues

    4 lessons, about 40 minutes

    The signals that mean ready, hungry, tired, or had enough. Your baby’s temperament, feeding as a two-way conversation, and what sleep really looks like across the first year.

    1. 1The Cue Vocabulary
    2. 2Temperament
    3. 3Feeding as a Conversation
    4. 4Sleep Across the First Year

  3. Module 3

    Attachment in the First Year

    3 lessons, about 30 minutes

    What secure attachment is and isn’t, how babies attach to more than one person (including in childcare), and why separation and stranger wariness show up later in the year.

    1. 1What Secure Attachment Is, and Isn’t
    2. 2Many Hands
    3. 3Separation and Stranger Wariness

  4. Module 4

    The Explorer: Language, Movement, and Play

    4 lessons, about 40 minutes

    Babbling, pointing, and the first words your baby understands. Tummy time, crawling, and how moving changes everything. Play, hiding games, and what the evidence says about screens.

    1. 1Language Before Words
    2. 2On the Move
    3. 3Play and the Hidden Toy
    4. 4Screens, and the Year Ahead

What this class draws on.

Clear about what’s known. Honest about what’s not. Eight of the peer-reviewed studies the lessons are built on, at least one from every module.

  1. Nelson et al. (2007). Cognitive recovery in socially deprived young children. Science, 318, 1937–1940. Module 1, lesson 2
  2. Mesman, van IJzendoorn, & Bakermans-Kranenburg (2009). The many faces of the Still-Face Paradigm: a review and meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 29, 120–162. Module 1, lesson 3
  3. Slagt et al. (2016). Differences in sensitivity to parenting depending on child temperament: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. doi Module 2, lesson 2
  4. Black & Aboud (2011). Responsive feeding is embedded in a theoretical framework of responsive parenting. Journal of Nutrition. doi Module 2, lesson 3
  5. Madigan et al. (2024). Maternal and paternal sensitivity: key determinants of child attachment security examined through meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. doi Module 3, lesson 1
  6. Ahnert, Pinquart, & Lamb (2006). Security of children’s relationships with nonparental care providers: a meta-analysis. Child Development. doi Module 3, lesson 2
  7. Goldstein, King, & West (2003). Social interaction shapes babbling. PNAS. doi Module 4, lesson 1
  8. Strouse et al. (2021). Learning from video: a meta-analysis of the video deficit in children ages 0 to 6 years. Child Development, 92(1), e20–e38. doi Module 4, lesson 4

Who teaches it.

Matthew McArthur

Created and taught by Matthew McArthur, who holds an M.A. in Developmental Psychology from San Diego State University, where he studied how parent stress, changes at home, screen time, and back-and-forth interaction shape language and thinking from 6 months to 5 years, after working with developmental researchers at UCLA, and he wrote “Why Early Chatter Matters” for Frontiers for Young Minds.

He then spent two years in state-funded early intervention, coaching families with children under 3 who were experiencing delays.

Matthew writes and reviews every lesson. The narration is an AI model of his own voice, reading his script word for word.

Free reading for the first year.

A few things parents usually ask first.

How do I start, and how do I get back in?

When you enroll, you create a free account, pay securely with Stripe, and the class opens right away. After that it lives in My classes, which remembers where you left off in every lesson.

Can I get a refund?

Yes. Within 14 days of buying, and as long as you’ve watched 4 lessons or fewer, you get a full refund: email Matthew with the address you bought with. The free lesson doesn’t count toward the four. A refund ends your access to the class. Want to see the teaching first? Watch “Serve and Return” free, a full lesson from Module 1.

Is this medical or psychological advice?

No. The class is educational. For concerns about your own baby, your pediatrician and your baby’s clinicians are the right people to ask, and the class will help you ask better questions.