A Field Guide for New Parents · Established 2026

A field guide for the first year.
From two parents a few months up the trail.

What we figured out about the first year - registries, hospital bags, childcare math, mat-leave, sleep setups. We don't tell you what to do. We hand you the tools we wish we'd had.

Read the articles → Or use the key below.
The Field Guide by Pam & Jim

Fig. 1 · Key

What are you working on right now?

Where are you in the timeline?

Branch 1. Before week 32 Trying to decide what to buy Pre-Baby Decisions Seven conversations to have before the baby comes Branch 2. Weeks 32–40 Hospital bag & last minute to-dos Pre-Baby Decisions Seven conversations to have before the baby comes Branch 3. Months 0–4 In the thick of it First-Year Logistics What I didn't expect to love about mat leave Branch 4. Months 4–12 Childcare and back to work Childcare Decisions When to start your childcare search (you're probably already late)

This week's dispatch

From the field journal

Short entries. Notes from the trail.
Entry · 2026-04-22

The hospital bag, half full

We packed everything the lists said and used maybe a third of it. Drafting the actual list of what we reached for, in order, with what we ignored.

Entry · 2026-04-18

What California pays new parents

SDI, PFL, your employer's top-up - on paper they look like three different things. They land in your bank account as one paycheck. We're writing out what it actually adds up to, week by week.

Entry · 2026-04-12

Sleep training, both views

Eight weeks of Ferber starting at six months. We logged every night - duration, who went in, who wanted to quit. By night four neither of us was sure, and by night fourteen it was working.

What this is

We help you decide. We don't tell you what to decide.

We give you the questions to ask, the tradeoffs to weigh, and the math worth running. The right answer is the one that fits your family.

The parent layer, not the baby books.

Childcare logistics, money mechanics, sleep shifts, partner dynamics. The small-but-real decisions that nobody puts in the books.

Written by parents living it.

We had a baby in 2025. We figured a lot of it out. We're still figuring it out. Every piece comes from what we actually did, what worked, and what we'd do differently.