In this podcourse episode, we welcome back Pediatric SLP Rachel May, founder and CEO of New Day Child Coaching, to discuss reframing SLP involvement in infancy (0–12 months) from a “wait and see” approach to proactive “watch and support” partnering with families. Rachel shares concerns about fragmented caregiver-child interaction, screen-related distractions, and late referrals, and proposes a Pathwise framework that moves beyond a binary “typical vs delayed” model to include “different,” with three support levels: watch/support, learn to support (coaching), and advocate for support (prescriptive therapy). They review early communication “breaks” to monitor in 6–9 months, including canonical babbling, joint attention/gaze following, and social engagement in interactive games like peekaboo, noting why these markers matter for later language and developmental outcomes. Rachel also outlines family-partnering strategies such as embedded coaching in daily routines and video-aided reflection to empower parents as primary observers and advocates.