The First Year
Practical wisdom for raising your baby — from people who have cared for hundreds of them.
The program provides practical, non-medical guidance on everyday baby care and development—from preparing to bring baby home through the early toddler years.
Our classes are led by early childhood professionals with child development degrees and decades of infant classroom experience. They’ve managed thousands of nap cycles, soothing routines, and developmental leaps—bringing real-world practice directly to you.
The first year with your baby is amazing—and full of questions.
Is this normal? Why is my baby fussy? What kind of routine makes sense? What should we be doing during awake time? How do I encourage development? What changes should I expect next?
Books, websites and social media can give you endless information.
Sometimes what you really need is an experienced person you can sit down with and ask:
“What have you actually seen work with babies?”
That’s why we created The First Year—small, in-person parent-and-baby workshops led by veteran infant and toddler educators with early childhood development education and 20+ years of hands-on experience caring for hundreds of babies and young children.
Practical experience. Real questions. No judgment. And a community of parents going through it with you.
Choose Your Workshop
👶 Birth–6 Months
Understanding Your New Baby
For expectant parents and families with babies up to 6 months.
Those first months bring a remarkable amount of change—for your baby and for you.
Learn practical ways to better understand your baby, create comfortable everyday rhythms and feel more confident navigating life at home.
We’ll explore:
Understanding Your Baby
- Reading hunger, tiredness and overstimulation cues
- Understanding crying and fussiness
- Recognizing your baby’s changing rhythms
Soothing, Sleep & Everyday Routines
- Practical soothing approaches
- Creating calm, predictable routines
- Understanding age-appropriate sleep patterns
- Making feeding, sleeping, play and outings work together
Play & Development
- Tummy time and movement
- Simple age-appropriate activities
- How babies learn through interaction
- Avoiding overstimulation
Preparing for What Comes Next
- Growing mobility
- Changing sleep patterns
- Preparing for feeding transitions
- Creating a safe environment as your baby becomes more active
Plus: Ask an Infant Teacher Anything
Bring the everyday questions that don’t always fit neatly into a book or a short appointment.
Expecting? You can attend before your baby arrives.
🌱 6–12 Months
Your Growing & Exploring Baby
Your baby is becoming mobile, curious, social—and much more determined!
This stage brings an entirely new set of questions.
Our 6–12 month workshop helps parents understand what is happening developmentally and provides practical ways to support exploration, routines and growing independence.
We’ll explore:
Movement & Exploration
- Sitting, crawling, pulling up and early movement
- Creating safe opportunities to explore
- Setting up your home for an increasingly mobile baby
Play & Development
- Simple activities that encourage learning
- Supporting communication and early language
- Choosing age-appropriate toys and experiences
- Encouraging curiosity without overstimulation
Food & Everyday Routines
- Navigating the transition toward solid foods
- Incorporating feeding into the family routine
- Changing nap and sleep rhythms
- Building predictable but flexible daily patterns
Growing Independence
- Understanding emerging preferences and frustration
- Early separation anxiety
- Encouraging secure exploration
- Preparing for the transition toward toddlerhood
Plus: Ask an Infant Teacher Anything
Every baby develops differently. Bring your questions, observations and challenges and learn from educators who have worked hands-on with hundreds of babies.
Reserve you spot today
Special Pilot Dates: Saturday Sept 19th. Saturday Oct 10th 2026.
We’re starting with a limited number of pilot workshops before our full public launch. Pilot families will help us refine the program by telling us what was most useful, what questions we should cover more deeply and what parents would like from future sessions.
Special Pilot Registration: $75 per family (planned regular price $129)
Includes: Up to two adults | Your baby | Interactive workshop | Open Q&A | Parent community time | Take home practical guide
👶 Birth–6 Months
9AM to 11 AM
(10:30 AM to 11 AM Parent Community Time)
🌱 6–12 Months
10:30 AM to 12:30 PM.
(10:30 AM to 11 AM Parent Community Time)
Why Learn From Experienced Infant Teachers?
There’s knowing about babies. And then there’s knowing babies.
Pediatricians are essential for your baby’s health.
Lactation professionals can provide specialized feeding support.
Books and websites offer enormous amounts of information.
Experienced infant teachers bring something different: thousands of hours actually caring for babies.
Over decades in infant classrooms, our educators have experienced hundreds of:
- Personalities and temperaments
- Crying and soothing patterns
- Nap and sleep transitions
- Feeding transitions
- Developmental leaps
- Crawling and early movement
- Separation experiences
- Play preferences
- Everyday routines
- Parent questions and concerns
That experience creates something difficult to learn from a book or a website:
Pattern recognition.
Our workshops bring that practical, room-tested experience directly to parents.
More Than a Class. Build Your Village.
For generations, much of what new parents learned about babies was passed down through grandparents, relatives and extended family.
Today, many families don’t have that village close by.
We want to help create one.
Bring Your Baby
These classes are designed with babies in mind. Feed, change, soothe, walk around or take a break whenever you need to.
Bring Someone With You
Your registration includes two adults + your baby. Bring your partner, grandparent or another caregiver.
Ask Questions
There are no silly questions and no expectation that you should already know the answers.
Meet Other Local Parents
You’ll be learning alongside families whose babies are at the same stage as yours.
Come for the practical knowledge. Leave knowing a few more people in your parenting village.
Small Classes. Lots of Conversation.
We intentionally keep each workshop small so families have time to participate and ask questions.
📍 San Jose
📅 Weekend workshops
👨👩👧 Maximum 8–10 families per class
⏱ Approximately 2 hours (with 30 minutes reserved for informal community mixer)
👶 Babies welcome
🤝 Two adults + baby included
Each workshop includes guided learning, open Q&A, time to connect with other families and a practical take-home guide.
Every New Parent Deserves a Village.
You don’t need another thousand Google results.
Sometimes you need practical experience, someone who has seen this before, and other parents figuring it out alongside you.
Come learn from people who have spent decades caring for babies.
Birth–6 Months | 6–12 Months
Special Pilot Dates: Saturday Sept 19th. Saturday Oct 10th 2026
Reserve you spot today
Email admin@creativemindscdc.org your preferred date and required age group
Frequently Asked Questions
Absolutely.
Expectant parents can join the Birth–6 Month workshop to prepare for what everyday life with their new baby may look like.
Please do!
These are baby-friendly classes. We expect babies to cry, feed, sleep, need diaper changes and occasionally make it impossible for their parents to hear what we’re saying. That’s part of life with a baby.
Yes.
Registration includes your baby and up to two adult caregivers. That can be a partner, spouse, grandparent or other support person.
No.
Our educators provide practical parenting, child-development and everyday-care education—not medical diagnosis or treatment.
We complement, rather than replace, the guidance of your pediatrician and other healthcare professionals.
Questions involving illness, feeding problems, medical concerns or developmental concerns requiring evaluation should always be discussed with the appropriate healthcare professional.
No. We don’t promote a rigid sleep-training philosophy.
We help parents better understand age-appropriate infant sleep, routines, cues and rhythms and encourage families to make choices that are appropriate for their baby and family.
Then your baby is being a baby!
Feed them. Hold them. Walk around. Change them. Soothe them.
This is a judgment-free space built for real babies and real parents.
