Your 1‑Month‑Old Sleep Survival Guide
The first month of your baby’s life is magical and maddening in equal measure. One minute you’re sniffing their tiny head and weeping over how perfect they are, and the next you’re questioning your life choices at 3:40 AM while rocking a baby who has no idea it’s nighttime.
Here’s the truth: your one-month-old is brand new to this whole “being alive” thing — and their sleep will be a bit all over the place. But with a little bit of knowledge, the right guidance and some clever adjustments we can make this newborn stage feel a little less scary.
Let’s get into what sleep looks like at this age — and how to make it just a little bit easier.
First Things First: Go Slow, Go With The Flow
If you’re a Type-A parent desperately searching for a minute-by-minute plan... deep breath. At one month old, your baby is still figuring out the difference between day and night, you’re getting used to feeding, trying to work out how to put a nappy on the right way and burp a tiny squishy blob who can’t seem to stay upright - your job is to gently guide them.
👉 My approach is “flexible rhythm, not rigid routine.” Some days will be naps-on-naps. Others might feel like a never-ending feed. That’s OK. We’re just getting into the swing of this new life.
2. Wake Windows: You’re going to hear this word ALOT
A wake window is really simple - it’s the amount of time your baby is awake between naps. One-month-old babies can usually stay awake for about 50–90 minutes at a time. But let’s not get too hung up on the numbers at this teeny age — most babies will be really sleepy for the first 4-6 weeks because they have high levels of maternal melatonin (melatonin that was passed on from you) and so you might not really notice much awake time at all - just feed, burp, sleep on repeat.
But as you edge closer to 4 weeks what you might want to start looking out for is some of the signs that indicate they are tired and ready for their next snooze.
Watch for:
· Glazed-over eyes
· Red eyebrows
· Clinginess
· A sudden case of “fussy for no reason”
With this you’re going to start becoming a really good sleep detective.
All you need is this really simple mantra - wake window + sleepy cues = time for a nap.
3. How Long Should They Sleep?
In short? However long they feel like… within reason.
Naps can be 20 to 120 minutes, and you might see 5–8 naps across the day. That’s normal.
If your baby clocks a two-hour nap, it’s time to wake them and feed. In the early weeks, babies need around 8–12 feeds in 24 hours. If they snooze for very long stretches in the day, they often “make up for it” at night — waking more frequently to catch up on calories. By gently waking your baby at the 2-hour mark, you give them a chance to take in a full feed. This builds the habit of taking more calories in the day, so they don’t have to rely as heavily on night feeds.
Waking your baby after a 2 hour nap also helps to prevent this thing called ‘day/night confusion’. Babies aren’t born with circadian rhythms (our internal body clocks). Those begin to develop gradually after birth, influenced by light, feeds, and activity. If a newborn has very long naps in the day, it can reinforce the opposite rhythm — more sleep in the day, more wakefulness at night. Waking at 2 hours helps keep their days a little more active and their nights a little more restful, supporting that natural adjustment.
✨ So no need to stress about tracking nap totals — but this one guideline can really help set you (and baby) up for smoother nights as their sleep matures.
4. What about bedtime?
For most one-month-olds, their day and night pattern is going to look fairly similar because they are usually waking to feed every 2-3 hours. So ‘bedtime’ where some little ones might start sleeping for a little bit longer often falls somewhere between 8–10 PM. If you’re chasing that early baby bedtime you might need to hang on until closer to 6-8 weeks when their circadian rhythm has matured slightly and you can proactively start to bring bedtime earlier to around 7-8pm
5. Common Struggles at 1 Month Old
Active Sleep (aka are you actually awake little baby?!) - Newborn babies have two types of sleep - Active sleep and Quiet sleep and when sleeping they cycle back and forth between the two. Quiet sleep is just that - your baby will be very still, look nice and peaceful, basically what we picture when we think of a sleeping baby. But that’s only half of the equation because the rest of the time they will be in Active sleep. Active sleep is really noisy, restless, wriggly, you might heat them grunting or even open their eyes and cry out. Lots of parents will confuse active sleep for their baby being awake (I did this many times in those early weeks) and unintentionally wake them up.
Day–Night Confusion (aka “Party all night, nap all day”) - If your 4–8 week old baby thinks daytime is for snoozing (taking 3-4 hours naps) and nighttime is for raving (waking every couple of hours, sometimes for long stretches), you’re not alone. It’s called day–night confusion and it’s really annoying but actually quite easy to solve. I’ll show you exactly how to in this blog.
Will only sleep on you (aka the Koala baby) - Let’s be honest those newborn cuddles are the BEST. But it’s nice to have the option to be hands free when you want to. You are the safest most snuggly place for your newborn to sleep, so it’s no wonder babies will tend to sleep best (for longer and usually more deeply) on their parents. That’s not to say you can’t have your cake and eat it - enjoy the cuddly contact naps and gently start practising some sleep in the cot. Let me show you how to do that.
6. Put Google Down: Here’s Your Newborn Sleep Guide
If you’re thinking, “Why didn’t my baby come with instructions?” — this is it. My Online Newborn Sleep Workshop (0–3 months) puts everything in one place: how newborn sleep really works, setting up a safe sleep space, the only products worth your money, feeding tips for better nights, settling in the cot, a week-by-week flexible plan to 12 weeks, plus troubleshooting for short naps, night wakes, wind and reflux. It’s 14 bite-size videos you can watch at your pace in under 4 hours — perfect in late pregnancy or those hazy first 12 weeks. £39, zero fluff, all practical. Fewer 3am Google spirals; more calm, confident nights.