- Forget your schedule, follow your newborn’s natural pattern of sleeping and feeding on demand
- Attuning to their hungry and tired cues helps you respond more effectively to their needs
- Expect some funny faces, adorable cooing noises and head control as they reach their milestones
- Most babies lose 10% of their birth weight and regain it by around at 2 weeks
Your Baby's 1 Month Developmental Milestone
Key points
The first weeks of your baby’s life are thrilling, terrifying and very special. For most parents almost every minute is filled with the magical, and sometimes mundane; moments of caring as you feed, cuddle, bathe, and fall in love with your new baby.
When welcoming your first baby, you’ll be entering a steep learning curve. You will get loads of information and helpful suggestions, from family, friends and even strangers, often without asking. At first, it can seem overwhelming but read, research, and reach out to trusted sources or healthcare professionals for sound advice.
One of the first challenges any new parent will face is getting you and your baby used to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding provides complete nutrition as well as financial, health, developmental and immunity benefits for you and your baby. This is why the World Health Organisation recommends exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months, and continuing in combination with a balanced diet until your child is 2 years old and beyond.
While you may discover your own method of breastfeeding through trial and error, it is generally agreed that there are certain steps required to make it a comfortable experience for all:
1. Keep your baby close and hold them facing your chest.
2. Position them on their side so their nose is directly opposite your nipple.
3. Support your breast from underneath before placing your fingers around your areola and lift it to your baby’s mouth. Leave enough space between your fingers and areola so your baby can latch onto enough breast tissue.
4. If your baby doesn’t latch on immediately, touch their lips to your nipple to encourage their mouth to open. Once it is sufficiently wide enough, bring their mouth to your breast, chin first. The bottom lip needs to be ‘off centre’ to the areola, meaning that it should be down over the tissue.
5. Ensure that you are supporting the breast throughout the feeding process until you are aware your baby has latched properly. You want them swallowing and sucking in a regular pattern.
6. If you are experiencing pain at any point, try removing and reattaching your baby’s mouth to a more comfortable position. This may take some trial and error.
7. To remove your baby from your breast, you can break the seal by inserting a clean finger between their gums.
The most important tip to remember, however, is to listen to your baby. They will naturally know when to stop feeding and when they are hungry. Look out for hunger cues to help stay on top of their feeding schedule.
Hungry baby cues
Responding to your baby's feeding cues is the best way to establish a milk supply based on your baby’s needs. This may initially take some time to get used to as a typical feed is digested in just 90 minutes (1.5 hours), but frequent feeding is completely normal. It is common for babies to feed 8 to 12 times or more in 24 hours!
Feeding and sleeping on demand
During this time, feeding and sleeping will be 'on demand', which means following their natural pattern of hunger or tiredness. This may seem like an odd approach initially, but before you know it, you will have a milk supply perfectly suited to the needs of your baby.
Waking often during the night to feed your baby is also protective against things like SUDI (sudden unexplained death in infancy).
Remember to hydrate
Creating breast milk uses extra fluid, so keeping hydrated is not just important for your baby’s feeding habits, but also your well-being. Keep a glass of water or a water bottle handy and don’t hesitate to ask your support network for help with hydration as you may find yourself preoccupied with your baby.
Ask for support
Like many new skills, breastfeeding can take time and perseverance to learn. However, many breastfeeding issues can be overcome with the right support.
Your partner or support network can help you emotionally and physically throughout the process as needed. If you desire or need professional help, assistance is available in the form of midwives and lactation consultants, at Careline.
While a newborn baby may not be able to speak in words, there are plenty of clever ways they can communicate with you. It is important to pay attention to their wordless cues to assess their physical and emotional needs, and to know exactly what you can give them as their caregiver.
Feeding cues
Most babies will exhibit signs of being hungry, otherwise known as feeding cues. These wordless actions and sounds can be a useful way to determine when they need feeding. They often come in stages, such as:
- Early. Babies have a clear way of communicating that they are hungry. Early hungry signs include stirring from sleep, opening their mouth, and turning their head from side to side.
- Mid. Don’t worry if you miss those early cues, babies cleverly change their communications to try and get our attention. These cues include stretching, sucking their lips and hands, becoming restless, and making cooing and sighing sounds.
- Late. When we miss these early and mid-cues, babies escalate to crying, turning red in the face, and becoming agitated.
Responding to these early cues can improve your ability to latch and feed well. It also keeps the milk supply up and lets your baby know you are there when they need you. It can be more difficult to get a good latch and feed well when your baby has escalated to the late feeding cues. Try to settle or calm your baby prior to latching.
Pain cues
It may become clear that there are times when your baby’s crying doesn’t mean they’re hungry. Even after feeding, they may be fussy or inconsolable, meaning that there is another reason for their distress. Often, this is because they’re feeling discomfort.
One cause of this crying may be trapped gas from swallowing air during a feed. This can be relieved by holding your baby upright on your upper chest with their head resting on your shoulder, patting their back with your other hand.
Another method of releasing wind is putting your baby over your lap, face down over your knee, and gently patting their back with one hand. The other hand should support their chin and head.
Ensure you allow time for 'burping’ your baby in the middle of their feed and after their feeds. This will help to remove any excess gas and prevent them from feeling any pain.
While your milk supply is establishing, try to avoid using dummies or teats with breastfed babies as they may interfere with your ability to pick up on their feeding cues.
In their first month your baby will want to sleep when they are tired and feed when they are hungry. It seems very simple, and it can be. Babies may want to feed every 2 to 3 hours and sleep in between feeds.
This is feed on demand and your baby does not need a set sleeping or feeding routine. As long as they stay awake for full feeds during the day and night, are held, rocked and kept close, their needs are simple.
Learning your baby's sleepy cues can be very helpful, especially once you can pinpoint when they’re growing tired and act on getting them to sleep. If your baby has trouble settling down to sleep here are some common reasons why.
Cluster feeding
Babies can often be quite unsettled in the early evening, a habit that often starts in the first 2 to 3 nights after coming home. Babies may want to cluster feed, a method of frequent feeding, during this time and may not fall asleep easily unless held or fed.
While cluster feeding is a normal newborn behaviour, it can be stressful and exhausting for parents. Be sure to get enough rest where possible, such as taking naps during the day. Don’t hesitate to rely on your support network when needed to ensure you are getting enough rest.
Gut wind
Trapped gut wind is also a common reason for an unsettled baby in these early months, and it’s completely normal due to their poor gut tone. Tummy time over your thigh, moving your baby’s knees to their chest, doing bicycle movements with their legs, and clockwise tummy massages can all be great ways to help make your baby feel more comfortable.
If you can, aim to sleep when your baby sleeps to improve your energy reserves for feeding and night waking. Call on your support network during these difficult times to top up that water bottle, cook a nutritious meal, or do some laundry.
Change of scenery
If you’re having trouble settling your little one, try a change of scenery – a bath or going for a walk are great ways to calm your bub down and reduce your own anxiety.
Snuggle up
An unsettled baby is typically an emotional one, which is why an excellent method to quieten them down is by connecting with them. Enhance the emotional bond between you and your baby by engaging with gentle physical activities; cuddles, gentle massages, or holding them as they nap are all common ones to heighten your connection.
If your baby is crying more than usual and you cannot find a reason, this may be a sign of colic. Colic is defined as excessive crying in an otherwise healthy baby for more than 3 hours on at least 3 days of the week. This excessive crying is often worse in the late afternoon or early evening. Colic occurs in 1 in 5 young babies and may start at around the 1 month age.
Holding your baby skin to skin, using a sling or front pack, may help to keep your baby settled and still give you ease of movement. See our tips on how to settle a colicky baby here. If your baby is persistently crying for more than 3 hours a day, reach out to your healthcare professional for advice and support.
This period can be overwhelming. If you and/or your partner are struggling and need someone to talk to, there are support services available such as:
- Your Registered Midwife
- Child and Family Health Nurse
- GP
- PANDA helpline: 1300 726 306 (AUS),
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354 (NZ).
The first four weeks of your little one’s life can bring you unimaginable joy! You may start to notice some amazing new skills you can add to their “first milestones” list!
By one month, most babies improve their mouth and grasp reflexes, gain better head control, strengthen their back and neck muscles, respond to your touch, and make adorable cooing noises.
Make faces
Your baby may start to experiment with their facial expressions, such as raising their eyebrows or widening their eyes. Take lots of photos and videos so you can remember these cute faces!
Startles at noises
Newborns often respond to loud sounds by startling or crying (if you notice your baby does not respond to a loud noise, get in contact with your healthcare professional). With this improvement in hearing, your baby's head may turn towards you when they recognise a familiar voice or want to be comforted.
Responds to you
Babies often turn their heads or respond when they recognise familiar faces, you may even notice them start to follow you with their eyes as you move around!
Sees the world
During this time, babies can roughly see objects around 45 cm away and will start to gaze at an object that is slowly moving towards and away from their face.
Babies can’t see colour as vividly as they can when they get older, but they love looking at high contrast patterns. Check in with your local library about borrowing high contrast books or you can purchase online or in most bookstores.
Holds up head
Short, supervised sessions on their tummy can encourage the development of a baby’s fine motor skills. At one month, two to three, 3 minute tummy-time sessions daily giving them greater head control. Start by placing your baby in a safe, clean and comfortable area on the floor. Allow them to a few minutes and, as their back and neck muscles strengthen, they’ll start to hold up their head.
Every baby is a small miracle on their own journey. In the first 1,000 days of life your baby’s brain develops faster than any other time in their life. All these early moments you spend playing, cuddling, feeding, and interacting with your baby help them learn, grow, and reach their developmental milestones.
If you are concerned about your baby’s development, reach out to your Registered Midwife, Child and Family Health Nurse, GP and/or Paediatrician for advice.
A good indicator of your baby’s overall health and nutrition is their growth. Keeping in mind that every baby develops at their own pace, on average, they will typically gain around 0.7 to 0.9 kg and grow by 2.5 to 4 cm in length during the first month. Their head circumference tends to increase by about 1.25 cm each month.
It's completely normal for babies to lose up to 10% of their birth weight in the first week after birth. Most healthy babies typically recover this weight by the end of their second week.
Your healthcare professional, whether it's your doctor or maternal child health nurse, will regularly track your baby's growth by plotting it on a growth chart. Remember, babies come in various shapes and sizes, and your little one might be larger or smaller than others.
During this first month, it is beneficial to check in with your midwife, child and family health nurse, and/or GP to ensure your baby's emotional development and physical development are on track. This visit will also provide you with insight and information on your baby’s health and how to maintain it.
Each healthcare practitioner will have slightly different requirements so speak to them about when they would like to see you and your baby.
Typically, a practitioner will:
- Weigh and measure your baby
- Check newborn reflexes
- Check your feeding and provide support and suggestions
- Check how you are healing after the birth
- Check in with your mental wellbeing
- Keep an eye on those developmental milestones
- Discuss the relevant immunisations available and the timing each one is due
Any questions?
If your newborn returns to its birth weight in the first 2 weeks, can hear loud sounds, and your baby's eyes can track you, it's a good start. However, if you think your baby's crying is excessive or not sure if they are getting enough milk, speak to a midwife or dietitian at our Aptaclub Careline about any aspect of your baby’s growth and development.
Breastfeeding is best for babies. Good maternal nutrition is important for breastfeeding. Partial bottle feeding could negatively affect breastfeeding. Reversing a decision not to breastfeed may be difficult. Improper use of infant formula may affect the health of the baby. Social and financial implications should be considered.
Please note: These articles are meant to give you a general sense of the growth and development of your newborn baby. However, it’s important to remember that every baby grows and develops at their own pace. This article is not a substitute for medical advice. Always speak to your healthcare professional about any concern you have concerning your child.
www.tresillian.org.au/advice-tips/development/baby-development-milestones/
Newborn development at 1-2 months | Raising Children Network
Kids Health Information: Tummy time for your baby (rch.org.au)
Baby Basics: How to burp your baby | UNICEF Parenting
Newborns connecting & communicating | Raising Children Network
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When your little one is unhappy or unwell you want reliable support from a trusted source. Our Careline team of nutritionists, dietitians and midwives specialise in infant and child health, offering free nutrition, feeding and product information.
