MONTH 10
(40–43 weeks)

Baby’s weight: 15½ to 22½ pounds (average for girls);
17 to 24½ pounds (average for boys)
Baby’s height: 25¾ to 29½ inches (average for girls);
26½ to 30½ inches (average for boys)

YOUR BABY

Pulling from a sitting position using a chair, the couch, or the sofa is a good way for babies to develop their shoulders and biceps in preparation for stronger feats of mobility. Your baby may learn to use these props to support herself as she moves around sideways from one piece of furniture to another, lifting and replacing one foot at a time. She’s trying to master lowering herself down to a sitting position without flopping. She’s also becoming adept at pulling open drawers and cabinets to peer inside.

Ten-month-old baby

Baby development doesn’t occur smoothly. It’s more irregular than that—moving forward followed by regressing backward and lots of practice in between before a new plateau is reached. Typically, while a baby’s focusing on one area of mastery, such as her body skills, her communication skills or skills in other areas will lag behind.

Just accept your baby where she is and don’t try to push her. Instead, set aside quiet time to simply enjoy watching and interacting with her and enjoying where she is at the moment.

As your baby perfects her agility and speed on her hands and knees, she may engage in a simple hide-and-seek game of crawling around the corner only to peer back again. She may try to carry a toy while crawling, and it takes a lot of concentration not to let go. But it’s important to remember that crawling can take many forms— rolling places, scooting around on a diaper, creeping around like a crab with knees off the ground, or not crawling at all—and there is no need to worry that your baby’s eventual walking will be affected.

Your baby’s hand skills are continuing to improve. Her tiny forefinger will try to poke into every hole and crevice. Her pincer grasp—being able to pick up things by pinching them between her thumb and forefinger—is a vital skill that will emerge sometime in the next few months. This elegant feat of dexterity will uniquely distinguish your human baby from apes and the other creatures that are gifted with hands but aren’t able to accomplish the “pinch.”

Perhaps this month, or a few months from now, your baby will let go of all supports and stand, wavering, on her own, taking that momentous first step! After some practice, she will tentatively wobble forward for a few steps with legs spread apart like a drunken sailor. You can almost read the pride at that achievement on her face when the balancing act has been mastered. You’ll never forget where you were when you see your baby take those first steps.

  Tip

Sometimes when babies are busy learning to crawl and stand they may temporarily lose interest in eating and drinking, yet they keep on thriving and gaining weight. If your baby’s grazing on the run, try offering breastmilk or formula in a nonspill sippy cup. If your baby’s into finger foods, offer easy-to-grab, healthy snacks, such as Cheerios^® or banana pieces.

Mealtime with a ten-month-old is not a pretty sight, and you may find that your dining-out days have to be put on hold. You try to feed her. She wants to put her hands into everything, splash her hands in the food, and drop her bowl and cup overboard onto grandma’s carpet. She tries to wrench control of her spoon, sending food flying everywhere, and complains lustily when you won’t share your own dinner. Feed your baby privately before the big family dinner if you don’t want to chance offending others’ sensibilities.

SCENARIO: You’re visiting your in-laws and your cranky ten-month-old desperately needs to shut down for a nap. The only problem is, she rarely goes to sleep anywhere but in her own crib. Babies this age depend a lot upon not only their own tiredness cues, but also their cribs and daily routines to signal naptime. You decide to find a place away from the noise and bustle and set up a mini-environment that is similar to home. You stay low-key and tuck your baby’s favorite blanket in next to her. Eventually she drifts off.

   FLASH FACT: Righty or Lefty?

It’s hard to know for sure if your baby will turn out to be left-handed or right-handed based on which hand she prefers to use right now. One study appeared to find a connection between the direction babies habitually turned their heads when sleeping on their backs. They preferred the hand on the side they habitually faced when asleep.

YOU

Your baby has become her own separate little person now. And you’ve become quite a proficient parent. All the bases are mastered, and you’ve learned how to dual focus—watch your baby out of the back of your head while you’re doing other things.

Long silences when your baby’s out of view set off an alarm inside your head that reminds you to check what’s going on—and nine times out of ten, your intuition will be right and your baby is into something she shouldn’t be.

 

“Try to keep in mind when other moms start playing the ‘my child can do this better than yours can’ game that all babies progress differently, and this is NOT a competition. Moms who want to use their kids that way are probably insecure.”

All that vigilance can be tiring, but it also provides a sense of competence and mastery that makes you feel as though you’ve finally got this parenting thing down now.

Your baby is teaching you some important things about being flexible. The greatest plans of mice, men, and mothers often go awry. By now, you’ve learned how one spit-up can ruin a whole day and always, always to have Plan B waiting back stage.

 

“Let go of the idea that you’re supposed to be perfect. Embrace the lack of control, chaos, and craziness of being a parent once and for all. It’s so much easier just to go with the flow.”

Examples of Plan B: who will care for your baby if you, your partner, or your baby’s usual sitter get sick; what to do when you run out of diapers at three in the morning; how to cope when your partner is unable to make it home in time for an outing you’ve both look forward to all week; and how you’ll handle it when your baby’s sick and you’ve got a lot on your plate at work.

There’s always that ongoing tension between your own needs, your baby’s needs, and your partner’s needs. Parenting a baby grows strong people who can tune into others’ cues, but it also teaches parents how to manage such a delicate balancing act. Sometimes the act means letting go of control, or postponing personal rewards for a while and coming to the realization that you won’t crumble as a result.

Baby language

Your baby now has intention: She shows you what she wants by pointing, making noises about it, and reaching up to you to get picked up. “Do you want me to carry you?” you ask, knowing full well what’s being requested. In the months ahead, your baby will become more expressive and will be able to voice “up,” or another word that lets you know she wants to be lifted to your hip, but raised arms are usually all that’s needed to hitch a ride.

Your baby is trying to communicate with you. If you point, she may look in that direction. She may give certain sounds meaning, such as der for “right there.” She may shake her head for now, and look you in the eye and then glance somewhere else to try to get you to look at something. At this stage, some babies turn into yellers, screamers, and screechers, and that can be embarrassing in public, evoking unwelcomed judgment or sympathy. Aggressive babies may also be shunned from playgroups for the crimes of scratching, biting, and hair-pulling.

  Tip

Remember that baby intelligence and when a baby walks or crawls aren’t connected. Most babies don’t officially become bipeds until months 12 to 15, and sometimes as late as month 18.

Not to worry. Once your baby can start to express herself and walk, the frustration behind these behaviors is likely to melt away. Meanwhile, keep playmates down to just one at a time and supervise closely. You may want to explore teaching your frustrated nonspeaker how to use baby sign language. (For more about baby signing, see in this chapter.)

Now’s the time to begin pulling out more normal, adult-like language to acclimate your baby to the flow of everyday conversation. Ask your baby questions, and if she uses “baba” when she wants a bottle, or “radee” if she wants to play with the portable radio’s knobs, feed her the correct word through a question: “Do you want your bottle? Would you like to play with the radio?” Use running dialogues to tell her what you’re doing. “Now I’m fastening you into your stroller. Then we’re going to go for a walk. We may even see some doggies.”

A battle of wills

Your baby’s into everything she can get her hands (or mouth) on, and you find yourself yelling “No!” from across the room. She turns her head toward you, looks quizzically at you, and then immediately goes back to drooling and gnawing on the extension cord that could deliver a painful shock. She may even show a fleeting interest in “reading” a board book for babies with clever pictures of animals and toys before demanding to put it in her mouth for tasting.

There’s definitely a battle of wills going on between your baby’s incredible drive to finger, bite, chew, and otherwise experience her world, and your need to maintain control and protect her from mortal injury.

You feel your blood pressure rising, and when you’re about to lose it and go crazy to show her who’s boss, hopefully, you stop in your tracks and realize that she’s just a baby, and her urge to explore is much stronger than any commands you might issue. Plus, her baby brain isn’t developed enough to inhibit what she’s doing or follow rules.

SCENARIO: You often leave the television on, and your baby seems to be oblivious to it, except when the commercials come on. She moves close to the television screen, pats it, and starts fiddling with the knobs, which is irritating to you. You wonder what it is about commercials that attract your baby. Probably, it’s that they are noisy and colorful and are louder than normal programming, which makes them more noticeable. For a change, you decide to turn off the television and take your baby out for a long, relaxing walk around the neighborhood. Being outdoors and in the fresh air instead of being glued to a screen makes you both feel better.

 

“We definitely had a high-need baby! The ‘drop-dead-from-exhaustion-lose-your-mind’ part lasted until somewhere around nine months, and we truly weren’t out of the woods until a few months after our baby’s first birthday.”

Staircase safety
Your baby is fascinated by stairs and could spend hours awkwardly scrambling up them and teetering on disaster by turning around and nearly tumbling down.

Should you help your baby to practice stair climbing, or keep the stairs off limits by keeping both ends closed and locked off with hardware-mounted gates? Both.

Most babies learn crawling up easier than crawling down. Let your baby practice body skills on the stairs when you can sit right beside her and lend a ready hand for support. But when you don’t have the time or patience for stair play, keep them locked off so your baby won’t tumble down when your back’s turned. And don’t risk your own safety by trying to step over gates without unlatching them.