When Your Baby is 10 Months Old

You will be very keen to not only notice the various milestones coming the way of your infant, but would also want to participate in them and this article is an attempt to acquaint you with the different changes that your infant would experience going into his tenth month.

a) Showing more mobility

Babies in their tenth month can normally crawl along comfortably using their hands and knees as supports while keeping the legs and torso aligned firmly on the surface. Though some of the babies start this activity much earlier, it is around this stage of their development that they are able to gain control over this movement without any problems. Your baby will also be able to seat himself comfortably and will even try walking by taking the support of furniture every now and then to check for himself whether he is able to stand on his own and without any prop.
When he is able to stand, he will instinctively now reach out to any item and prop to find support and will also want to try to start crawling up the steps. He will also try to climb steps without crawling and will try to reach out to toys while maintaining his standing position. These are indications of him wanting that freedom to do things on his own and are also signals that you now will have your hands full managing him.

b) Using his fingers to grab

Your baby will now be able to hold on to tiny objects with his thumb and one of his fingers and will not need any support for his wrist in doing so. Since he would have started on cereals at this stage, picking up small items is not a problem for him. He is also in the mood for investigation and will try to check out some of the tiny items by tasting them. This is okay as long as these objects are of the edible type and are not so tiny that they can lead to choking.

c) Displaying traits of his Personality

You will notice changes in his demeanor and he would be both engaging as well as withdrawn depending upon the visitors he encounters. He will try to be communicative by making similar sounds as that of the visitor, try to win your attention and will even indicate his understanding of your departure by waving to you when you go towards the door as if to say goodbye. He now wants to assert himself and be more active, as is evident from the sounds of protest when you try to place him in his seat.

d) Comforting your baby

You will run into situations when you will need to be near your baby and comfort him, when he is faced with things that did not bother him much previously. These could be the ringing of the telephone or the doorbell and to prevent him from getting too hassled about these sounds; you have to be in close proximity to him to enable him to understand that there is nothing untoward that is happening near him.

e) Constantly chatting with your baby

Since your baby has now reached the stage where he is beginning to comprehend some of the simple words and actions, it is necessary to maintain verbal communication with him and this can be done by repeating what he says in a language that is real and comprehensible and not babyish, so that these new words and your expressions while saying them can contribute to his mental development. This is a very interesting and enjoyable stage in his development when he tries to say a lot of things all at once and they end up as gibberish. Your contribution at this time should be to acknowledge in adult language what he is trying to convey and that will keep him interested and motivated to continue trying to speak. You will soon notice that over time you are beginning to understand his words and other gestures like pointing towards something or grunting disapproval over something not in his favor.

Communication is the key and you can now take it a step further by actually telling him your plan for the day or by detailing the activities you have already finished. You can also follow up specific actions by speaking about them, sing some rhymes and play some games. These actions will increase his sense of identifying words to actions and add to the repository of vocabulary in his brain. Very soon, you will begin to notice that he is able to connect and imitate your actions and also starts identifying people when they walk into the room, though he may still use one name for the other.

f) Is the development proceeding along normal lines?

You need to appreciate that every baby has got its own personality and will achieve milestones at a specific pace. The information given above should be treated as general guidelines corresponding to the development of an average 10 month old child and is not sacrosanct. You can always have some differences in the way each child develops and that is no cause for any worry.

Prematurely born children tend to usually do the same activities a bit later than children born normally and you only need to keep in touch with your doctor, who will monitor his progress and keep you posted on what should be your behavior towards your child at specific stages of his development.

When Your Baby is 10 Months Old

You will be very keen to not only notice the various milestones coming the...