At one month, she’s still such a little thing… but boy is she awake A LOT!  Parents to a 1 month old baby are officially the tiredest people on earth!  So, is there such a thing as a 1 month old routine or are all mums as tired as you are right now?

Ask The Expert – Tara Mitchell talks the 1 month old routine

We asked Tara Mitchell, baby sleep consultant, what mums can expect from a one month old baby. If you have any concerns about your baby’s sleep patterns, feeding or general health, speak to your doctor right away.

Congratulations! No doubt you’re already in the thick of feeding highs and lows, trying to get some sleep and juggling some pretty enormous hormonal changes – not to mention the emotions that come with it. During the first month I recommend concentrating on building your supply and establishing feeding. Whether it be bottle feeding or breastfeeding.  The 1 month old routine is mostly about getting feeding right – 1 month old baby sleep routines generally come down to sleeping when the baby is tired.

In the first month it’s important to take plenty of opportunities to bond skin on skin and offer plenty of downtime for your little one. This period can bring with it a flurry of visitors, and over-stimulation can play havoc with your little one. Keep in the back of your mind that your newborn’s requirements for sleep are between 16-18 hours every day.

Basically they should be sleeping A LOT! Your little one may also seem nocturnal at this age which is normal. Offer feeds in a light space of the house during the day and keep things dark and boring at night time. Create a solid bedtime routine and by 6 weeks if your little one is still taking tremendously large naps during the day I would cap them at 3 hours each to help encourage the swap. For most, this is just a stage while their circadian cycle matures.

What our community said about the 1 month old baby sleep routine

We asked our massive audience of very, very tired mums of 1 month old babies roughly what time are their little ones are awake and asleep. How often does your 1 month old baby feed (if bottles – how much)?

We understand every baby is different and would rarely follow a strict routine or feeding and sleep schedule. Its just nice to know what other 1 month old babies are doing.

Does your 1 month old baby have a sleep routine?

•  We don’t have any real routine for our 1 month old, no of feeds, etc. Very baby led here. Nights he sleeps about 4hr then 3 then 2 with feeds that go from 1.5 to half hr. Days is feed, awake then feed then sleep. Sleeps can be cat naps to a decent few hrs. Awake we just talk; make silly noises etc nothing serious.    Meaghan

•  My 1 month old baby follows the following most of the time.  Feeds every 3-4 hour during the day, clustering towards bedtime and up maybe three times a night max. Slept 2-3 hours at a time at night in between feeds. Every day the sleep pattern was different. We mostly just walked around looking at and touching things during ‘playtime’   Leanne

•  My 1 month old baby has gotten herself into a semi routine by herself – something like awake at 7.30-8, bottle (between 60-120mls, usually around 90), play, sleep at 9, awake at 11, bottle, play, asleep at 12:30, awake at 3, bottle, play sometimes asleep at 5 but often stays awake grumpy till bottle at 6ish, bath every second night, sleep at around 7:30, awake at 11:30, bottle, straight back to sleep, one or two dream feeds anywhere between 1:30-5:30 and awake again around 7:30. However we are baby led at this stage but this is the general pattern.   Marney

•   My daughter is fed every 3 hours or so through the day, sometimes earlier, sometimes later. At 4 pm we do bath time, followed by a feed, then often cluster feeds till around 7 pm. I have started giving a dream feed around 10, and she sleeps till around 3 or 4, and then wakes again around 6 or 7 to start the day. We are still figuring out the best waking and sleeping routine to work around the older kids school drop off and pick up times. When having “playtime” she snuggles with her older siblings, tummy time, or has time in her swing.    Michelle

•  Feeds 2-3 hrly during the day, day time sleep schedules change, he sometimes has cat naps or full naps. Night sleeping changes to but the past week he going to bed at 9.30, waking at 12pm then 5 am and then 7am for good, he has awake time when he wakes in the morning for a while and the past 3 days he has started talking and smiling. I sing to him and talk to him when he is awake during the day. No routine in general, I just bath him at the same time I put him to sleep at the same time.   Alana

•  Cat nap during the day 120 mil of formula ( depending on the brand ) feed every 4 hrs went to bed at 10 woke at 3 then 6 am.  Our baby sleep routine includes play and it’s never too early to start tummy time, keeps them from have a flat head.   Debbie

•  We don’t have a baby sleep schedule just yet.  Today our little guy woke at 8am (because we forgot to wake up and open the curtains to let the sunshine in at 7am). Fed at 8:20, slept til 12:20 then fed. Put him in the car to go to the shops (carried around in an ergo). Now back at home for the 4:20 feed yesterday was vastly different! Two hourly feeds and no nap between 1:10pm and 8pm = very tired mummy, especially sore from breastfeeding all day!   Elana

•  FF bubs- wakes up at 7am (feed) stays up til about 8.15, sleeps till 10am for next feed, bed at 11-1130 til 1-1.30, bottle at 2pm, sleep at 3pm till 4.30-5 then feed at 6-6.30 then bath and bed between 7-7.30. Sleeps til 3am has a feed and sleep till 7am. Has 130-190ml per feed.    Bianca

•  My 1 month old baby girl feeds every 4 hours day and night she wakes up has a 150ml bottle has a little talk and cuddle for about half an hour then she goes back to sleep i put her down awake and she self settles.    Heidi

•  My three week old son feeds every 3-4 hrs mine also cluster feeds around bed time. We do tummy time and play with big brother and different textures! Last feed is between 10 and 11 and he sleeps through till around/between 5-7am.   Ashley

•  My little man is up anywhere between 6:30-8:00 in the morning. We do feed, play, and sleep as much as we can, but sometimes turns into feed, play, feed and sleep. Still a battle at sleep time and he is starting to associate the swaddle with sleep. From about 4pm. he just has catnaps until 7/7:30 when we do bath feed and bed. Lately, he has been sleeping from the after bath feed until around 1:30am, then feed about 5am and another feed when he wakes for the day.    Louise

•  DS was drinking 150ml every 4 hours, going to bed at about 6.30-7.00 and waking up at 5am most of the time during the day when he was 1 month old he didn’t like have naps would only sleep for about 30 minutes.   Amanda

• I bath my 4 week old at the same time every night and put him to bed at the same time, he sleeps from 10pm-5am, wakes for a feed and then sleeps until 8am, he has some awake time when he wakes at 8am and we talk and I sing to him, he is so happy in the mornings. He then has another nap.. Day naps aren’t really routine and I follow his cues.    Alana

•  Just follow their cues I think they’re too young at 4 weeks to be in a routine, maybe try after 8 weeks. Just bottle feed what is on the tin and more if baby wants it.    Liz

•  I am a mum of 6 youngest is 5 weeks. You will find that bubby will settle into their own routine. It is best to have a regular bath/bedtime routine but during the day just follow their cues. My bub is bf on demand. So can’t advice on bottles. Just go with the flow and do what feels right for you.    Kellie

•  4 weeks is too young for a routine, but it’s ok to start helping them to fit into one. I follow my bubs cues completely ( second bub) but we have a set routine for our toddler so he kind of fits into it anyway. He already sleeps through the night and is just starting to follow a nap pattern ( he’s 9 weeks) during the day. They will eventually just develop a series of times that you will notice and that becomes their routine. At about the 12 week mark we will start to teach him how to self settle in his bassinet during the day, which he can already do at night.  Kelly

•  We sort of have a routine but it follows bub’s cues. He pretty wants to eat every 4 hours and he happened to manage to eat at the same times every day. He has 5 bottles of 130-190ml each at 6am, 10am, 2pm,6pm then at 3am. He sleeps for 1-2.5 hours between each. His bedtime is 7 and has a bath every second night just before bed. Routine helped us a lot as we have 2 older kids with kinder and school runs.  Overnight he sleeps from 7pm-3am then asleep after til 6am.    Bianca

•  With all my babies I just followed cues. I have more of a routine with my older children though. My last one was in bassinet until 6 months, my one prior was 8 months I had a very large bassinet. My fifth will most likely be the same.   Karlee

•  Follow their lead.  A baby sleep routine comes in its own time and once you know how they go then you can tailor it.    Sarah

Ironically, lovely Indie, this one month old baby took FOUR HOURS to get to sleep at this photoshoot!

•  I couldn’t handle having no routine and neither could my bubs. He was beginning to be horrible constantly crying and would take forever to settle for sleep! I bought Save Our Sleep by Tizzie Hall and started her routine at one month old.  Then, after a week, when it was down pat, I changed it around to suit him and me now he’s brilliant.  He’s 4 months now and is a lot happier!    Tash

• Pretty much went by what they needed but did bath time the same every night, that’s where the routine started, around 8 weeks things fell into place better 5 there are 24 tablets that are safe to pass that the milk but after I took them for 5 days straight my mail supply was dropping so maybe take every second day and keep up your fluids, it took me 2 days once I realised what it was to get supply back up with drinking Sustagen 3 times a day plus I always took pregnancy platinum multivitamins and ate lots of fresh health food in my diet anyway.   Christine

•  I was in a similar situation with my now 12 week old. Hubby went back to work after 4 weeks and also have a toddler. The only thing I really did at that age was always wake her at 8 each morning to start the day. Toddler is usually up at 7 so that gave me an hour in the morning so get her dressed, both have breakfast and have some cuddle time before needing to feed bubs. We then followed bubs cues which ended up being roughly 3 hour feeds. Now that she is a little bit older she has fallen into a more consistent 4 hourly cycle on her own.  Carly 

•  At 4 weeks I didn’t follow a routine, I did whatever my bub wanted basically. I tried to breastfeed every three hours but if he wanted one earlier I would do that and I let him sleep whenever he wanted. He started putting himself into his own routine at about 3 or so months.   Symone

•  I have a five week old and the best thing for us is to just follow bub’s cues. I also have a 2 yr old so we just loosely fit in with his routine. My baby usually breastfeeds at 6, 9 and around 12 with short naps in between then a long nap from about 1-2 for an hour or 3 then another feed and then cluster feeding from 5-8 and then we all go to bed and I aim to have everyone asleep by 8:30 (often fail) then she wakes for feeds at 1:30, 4 and 6. With feeding I alternate sides feed for however long she is latched then offer her other only if she still looks hungry.    Jessica

•  At this early age follow your babies cues and a pattern will follow. A one month old baby can’t understand a clock or a routine.  At this age, she will be hungry and tired and responding to what you see will help things fall into a pattern. Bath when it suits you. Through summer a bath after some of the feeds can help settle the baby as well. Good Luck.    Lynne

•  I did a routine from birth and it worked really well, within a week she would wake 5-10 mins before she was due for a feed, and always sleeps really well. Slept through from 10-6am 4 weeks and from 7-6am from 19 weeks. So yeah, plenty of benefits. And contrary to some beliefs by demand feeders, she never got really upset or hysterically screaming and starving, she’s always been a very happy settled bub I didn’t follow any books, just 4 hourly feeds 6am, 10am, 2pm, 6pm, 10pm. Sort out the feeds and the sleep just follows. They have a good long feed so are really full and sleep really well. My advice would be that if you decide to do it be very consistent with it, set your alarms, and do it at the set times so they get into the routine. Good luck with it and feel free to pm me if you need more advise. X     Megan

•  Follow cues.  A one month old routine is a bit of a myth.  It’s too young at 4 weeks for a solid baby sleep routine. That doesn’t mean to say you can’t do things at the same time every day or night but it can be a bit hard to stick to it with changing demands. Around 4 months you can start setting a proper routine.   Mel

Read more from our expert on what to expect each month

• Two Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Three Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Four Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Five Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Six Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Seven Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Eight Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Nine Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Ten Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• Eleven Month Old Baby Sleep Routine
• One Year Old Baby Sleep Routine

Tell us about the routine of your 1 month old baby