1 Month Old
Developmental Milestone
Brain Development: A one-month-old baby will have reflexes called primitive reflexes, meaning they do these things automatically even as a newborn. Try touching their cheeks, near their lips, and they will start to suck on your finger. This is called “Rooting Reflex”. Check out this article on what other reflexes you may see with your newborn. [Article]
Movement: Your newborn baby is just beginning to take part in everyday life and still getting used to the world. At one month, babies can weakly lift their arms up in the air. Most of the time, their little hands will be making a fist, and they will try to hold them up near their eyes or mouth. When you lay them down on their stomach, their heads can move from side to side. If you don’t hold their heads, their heads can’t support themselves and will most likely flop backward.
Eyes and Ears: You might often find their eyes looking around at everything. Sometimes, they might even look cross-eyed. At this age, the baby will prefer looking at people’s faces. The baby’s hearing isn’t fully developed yet.
Smell and Touch: Even as a one-month-old child, your kid will be picky about what they smell. They will like sweet-smelling things and will not like bitter or acid smelling things. They will recognize the smell of breast milk.
Social-Emotional Milestone
Although their hearing isn’t fully developed yet, they may be able to recognize some sounds but they will prefer listening to sounds or voices that sound familiar, like the sound of their parent’s voice. You may also notice that in the beginning, they will also spend a large part of the day crying. This is normal. They should begin to calm down after a few weeks.
Did you know?
You may notice that your baby is drinking a lot of milk. This is because during this time frame, the baby will be growing really fast. For the first few months, the baby may grow from 4 to 7 ounces every week. All this milk is helping support their growth.
Babies can also spend 1 to 6 hours of their day crying in the early stages of their growth.
Action Items
When choosing materials for your baby, choose softer materials which your baby will prefer.
To help the baby to start working on their moving skills, encourage “Tummy time”.
What is Tummy Time? With supervision, allow the baby to spend time in its tummy. Start doing this only for a few minutes each day and slowly do it for longer until you are doing it for 15 minutes a day. Even though having the baby on their back is a very safe and comfortable position, being on their tummy for a few minutes a day helps them start to develop their motor skills. Make sure you are there watching their every move though.
Be gentle in handling your baby and make sure their neck is always supported when holding them. Babies will not like rough handling so make sure your touches and holds are gentle.
Even at this age, it is good to keep eye contact when spending time with your baby. Making faces to show them different emotions is really good.
Make baby noises with the baby. This teaches them to begin to listen and can help establish the skill of taking turns when having a conversation.