1-Month-Old Baby Schedule

Have a 1-month-old baby and wondering what your typical day would look like? Here’s a schedule plus helpful tips!

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By now, you’ve probably noticed that your 1-month-old-baby is more alert. However, while he or she is more alert, you can still expect frequent naps during the day. If you’re breastfeeding, you’ll also notice how efficient they’ve gotten at nursing! Whereas it may have taken 45 minutes to nurse before, now it takes 20 minutes.

You shouldn’t expect a consistent schedule at this age but there are three main things you’ll want to keep track of: total sleep per day, number of feeds, and number of dirty diapers. Keeping track of these measures will ensure that your baby is getting enough sleep and enough food, which is what’s most important at this stage.

This post is all about a 1-month-old-baby schedule plus helpful tips.

General Tips

Feedings

At 1 month old, you can still expect your baby to eat 8-12 times a day, or every 2 to 3 hours. Getting in 8 feeds a day at the very least will ensure that your little one is getting enough to eat. If you’re breastfeeding, you’ll want to time each feed from the start of the last feed. If you’re bottle feeding, you can expect baby to eat 16 to 24 oz of formula or breastmilk a day.

In addition, looking for early hunger cues is the best way to know when your baby is hungry. You don’t want to wait until they’re crying because crying is a late sign of hunger. It can often take a while to calm the baby down enough to for them to eat. Early hunger cues include: lip smacking, rooting, and sucking on anything nearby.

Looking for early hunger cues will also encourage you to feed your little one on demand and not rely so much on scheduled feeds. Sometimes, baby may eat 1 ounce for one feeding then 3 ounces the next. So they may be ready to eat again in as little as 1 hour or as much as 3.

Schedules are extremely helpful to reference but you always want to make sure you feed your little one whenever he or she shows any signs of hunger.

Diapers

Keeping track of wet and dirty diapers is a great way to ensure that your baby is getting enough to eat. You’ll want to keep looking for at least 3 yellow stools (may be a little brown if formula-fed) and 6 wet diapers per day at this age.

Your baby may have more or less bowel movements than this but the key is consistent weight gain. We made sure to buy the diapers with a wetness indicator line, as well as a baby scale to ease our minds whenever we were in doubt.

Babies’ weights fluctuate so often so I wouldn’t go overboard with the scale. Once a week is a good frequency to keep track of his or her weight.

As far as the amount of weight that your baby should be gaining, all babies are different. But if you’re concerned at the pace of weight gain, it would be a good idea to reach out to your pediatrician or lactation consultant.

Sleep

You can still expect your 1-month-old baby to sleep 14-17 hours in a day, which is usually around 5-6 hours of day sleep and 9-11 hours of night sleep. Naps at this age typically range from 10 minutes to 3 hours so your baby could take a different number of naps every day. Sleep is pretty unpredictable at this age.

Your baby may sleep more during the day and less at night or the opposite. That’s why it’s important to focus on total sleep for the day instead of harping on the length of one or two naps.

If your baby is still waking up frequently at night to feed that’s also normal at this age. It’s very important to feed your little one when they’re hungry!

If your little one doesn’t seem to settle down right after a feed, he or she may not have taken a full feeding. Offer the breast or bottle again, burp them, swaddle, then try a pacifier before laying them down again. Having some kind of white noise often does the trick too.

It’s also normal for baby to have a later bed time in the newborn phase. Having a later bedtime (around 10pm) can also help cut down nighttime feedings. Once baby gets a little older (around 3 months), that’s when you typically start earlier bedtimes because they will be taking less naps.

Playtime

At 1 month old, you can do more with your baby during his or her wake window than you could in the beginning. This is a good age to start introducing some high-contrast images and a play gym if you haven’t already. As baby’s eyes develop, they will find black and white pictures intriguing! You can make them or purchase them.

My absolute favorite are the Lovevery subscription boxes. For just $40/month you get these Montessori inspired toys delivered directly to you.

Until my daughter turned 6 months, we didn’t really have any other toys for her besides these and I honestly think they were more than enough. They have black-and-white cards as well as instructions on how and when to introduce each toy.

The Looker Play Kit by Lovevery

In addition to high contrast cards, you can begin trying tummy time on a play gym. If you don’t know what tummy time is, it’s an incredible exercise for babies that helps them develop their neck and core muscles. It also keep them off of their backs for some time, which helps avoid developing a flat head. Most importantly, it’ll help them achieve their milestones.

The way I did tummy time was based on my daughter’s age. By the time she was 1 month old, I said “okay, let’s strive for 10 minutes a day by the end of the month. By 2 months, 20 minutes” and so on. She hated it in the beginning and we would take frequent breaks, but then she learned to love it.

We were gifted the Lovevery play gym from a friend so that’s the one we used, but here are a few more that get great reviews:

Lastly, babies are made for human interaction. So here are some other great ways to play with your newborn:

House tours
Funny faces
Talking
Reading
Singing
Playing music

Growth Spurts

At 1 month old, your little one has probably had 2 major growth spurts so far. You can expect another one at around the 6-week mark, in which baby will be doing a lot of cluster feeding. Cluster feeding is when your baby wants to eat more often, which is totally normal.

One of the best ways to manage a growth spurt is to plan ahead. You can plan ahead by making sure you have the next size up in baby’s clothes. You can also make sure you have expressed milk stored in the fridge as well as more formula since baby will be eating more.

Milestones

When your baby turns 1 month old, this is a good time to start looking at the first set milestones, which typically occur at 2 months. Continuing to interact with your baby and doing tummy time are great ways to ensure that they are achieved.

Of course, all babies develop at different rates. Just because your baby doesn’t seem close to achieving these milestones doesn’t mean that he or she is behind in any way. Always consult with your pediatrician or another professional about specific concerns.

CDC 2-Month Old Milestones

Leaps

One concept my husband and I came across when we had our daughter was something called a leap. Leaps are major developments that your baby undergoes 10 times before they turn 2 years old. Knowing when these leaps occur can help you understand your baby better.

When your baby is going through a leap, he or she may be fussier, want to eat more or less, sleep worse, become clingier, and more. Instead of panicking, our first thought was to check our Wonder Weeks app to see if our daughter was going through a leap before reaching out to the doctor.

The first leap occurs at 5 weeks old (based off of your due date) and the second one at roughly 8 weeks. To learn more about the leaps your baby goes through, download the Wonder Weeks app here!

Doctor Visits

Your baby will have many check-ups before they turn 1. You’ve probably been to the pediatrician once or twice already but you will have another well-visit when your baby turns 1 month old.

At your baby’s well-visit, the doctor or nurses will do four main things:

Head circumference check
Weight check
Height check
Vaccines

They may also compare your baby’s measurements on a growth chart. This does not compare your baby to other babies, it’s to ensure that your baby is following his or her own curve.

Your doctor may want to space the recommended vaccines differently than outlined on the CDC website, but the general timeline is in the PDF is attached below:

Lastly, here are some useful questions you’ll want to ask your pediatrician while you’re there:

Do I have to wake my baby up to feed at night?
Will he or she react to the vaccines? How can we manage a fever?
What do normal stools look like?
How often should my baby pee and poop?
What are signs that my baby isn’t getting enough to eat? Signs of dehydration?
How many times a day should by baby eat?

Below is a schedule for a 1-month-old baby. It’s important to remember at this point that your baby is too young to have a consistent schedule. Every day will be different.

Key things to focus on at this point in time is number of feedings (at least 8) and total sleep (14 to 17 hours of day and night sleep combined). Your baby may still be waking up to feed once or twice at night and that’s still normal. You got this!

Early Morning – 6:30 a.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding, and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Mid-morning – 9:00 a.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding, and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Afternoon – 11:30 a.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding, and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Mid-afternoon – 2:00 p.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding, and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Late Afternoon – 4:30 p.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding (cluster feeding may occur), and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Early Evening – 7:00 p.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding (cluster feeding may occur), and hygiene care if needed
Tummy time and play
Nap

Late Evening – 9:30 p.m.

Wake time – 30 minutes to 1.5 hours
Diaper change, feeding (cluster feeding may occur), bedtime and bath routine
Down for sleep

Middle of the Night – 1:00 a.m.

Feeding, diaper change if needed, and right back to sleep

Pre-morning – 4:00 a.m.

Feeding, diaper change if needed, and right back to sleep

This post was all about a 1-month-old baby schedule.

1-Month-Old Baby Schedule Printable