12 Developmental Milestones of a 10 Month Old Baby

Your 10 month old baby must have indeed changed in many ways. You may be amazed at how fast your baby grows to become an independent toddler, playing, moving around, and speaking fluently. Your baby's personality may also appear to you. You probably also noted that your child already has a few favourite activities.

Read ahead to learn about the baby's development, through which an infant learns at a pace of 10 months. This article provides information on growth, newborn care, sleep, nourishment, and safety milestones of a 10 month old.

At ten months of age, babies can pull themselves up from sitting to standing, squat and sit again, and cruise around while gripping objects or your hands. Your kid will move around even more frequently as they walk in just a few months. They will start saying “mama” and “dada” and learn gestures.

Furthermore, your infant's brain functions like a tiny sponge, taking in information from everything around it. To help them understand, think of recounting everyday experiences, such as grocery shopping and changing nappies.

Movement Milestones for a 10 month old:

• Crawling: All babies can crawl on their hands and knees.
• Pull Up: They pull themselves up to a standing position using furniture.
• Cruising: Some babies are cruising along furniture while holding on for support.
• Sitting: All can sit up independently and reach a crawling position.
• Standing: They may be supported vertically for short periods.
• Fine Motor Skills: Increased ability to pick up and manipulate small objects.

Visual Milestones:

Development in these respects is typical for children, and their visual milestones are as follows:

• Depth Perception: Now that they understand how things are related in space, they can measure distances with greater understanding.
• Hand-Eye Coordination: The finer coordination speaks of finer reach and grabbing small things.
• Exploring Vision: After developing an interest in their surroundings, they explore objects by the vision, and colours and shapes are interesting.
• Tracking: The ability to track moving objects in their eyes becomes smoother and more perfect.

Normal ten-month-old infants would improve their ocular development since they start showing more advanced depth perception and hand-eye coordination as they explore and play with things.

Hearing Milestones:

Babies are very good at responding by ten months, as compared to earlier months; they hear a lot, respond much to sounds, and possess the following milestones:

• Response to Sounds: They begin to look towards the familiar sounds or voices for the familiar voices.
• Understanding Simple Cues: They start to respond to simple cues such as “no” or their name.
• Imitation of sounds: They might start imitating some easy sounds and babbling to experiment with his voice.
• To Music: They may love some sort of music or rhythmic sounds and would dance or react to the beat of the song.

Smell Milestones:

A baby at 10 months old is better at using their sense of smell to recognise familiar smells and has a much keener perception of the environment.

• Smell Sensitivity: They become sensitive to and responsive to many different smells through which they express preferences or aversions.
• Recognition: They start recognising familiar smells, such as their caretakers or favourite foods.
• Exploratory Behaviour: They use their sense of smell and simply sniff at things and people to recognise them.

Touch Milestones:

At this age, babies have developed their sense of touch as they stretch their sensitivity and exploratory behaviour when they play with various textures of objects in their environment.

• Feeling Texture: Their sense of touch improves. They can feel the texture and temperature more.
• Learn by Hands and Mouth: They feel things with their hands and mouth; they see what the object is made of and how it looks.
• Grasp and Manipulate: They learn a better sense of grasp and manipulation through the hands and fingers.

By ten months, babies generally achieve most of the major sleep milestones that characterise their fluctuating patterns and the development of their general selves.

They sleep with a more predictable pattern and have a regular time for naps, while their bedtime is predictable. They are more likely to sleep longer stretches at night with fewer nocturnal wakings.

Sleep Milestones and Timings for a 10 month old:

• Nap: Most babies are still sleeping two naps a day, but this will change in the next few months in terms of length and timing.
• Self-soothing: They should continue to become more skilled at self-calming, such as falling back to sleep in the middle of the night.
• Ideal Sleep Time: A 10 month old baby needs about 12 to 15 hours of sleep in 24 hours, including 10 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep and 2 to 3 hours of naps.

Feeding Milestones for a 10 month old:

• Self-feeding: During this time, by ten months, your baby can use their fingers to pick up and successfully bring small pieces of food to their mouth.
• Mixed Diet: They can accept food with many textures and types, including soft-cooked veggies, fruits, and finely minced meat. 
• Feeding from a Cup: The baby can take some amount of liquid from a sippy cup or a regular cup when supported.
• Predictable Feeding Pattern: They tend to have predictable feeding patterns; they would have three meals and a few to two snacks daily on breast milk or formula
• Biting: As they do not have enough teeth, they easily bite since their gums and molars facilitate this.

What to Feed:

Here are key cognitive milestones for a 10 month old:

• Object Permanence: Your baby will know that objects still exist even when they are out of their sight. They may search for a toy after hiding it under a blanket or pillow.
• Discovery: They are curious by exploring their environment more vividly; they might touch or play with something to see what occurs.
• Imitation: Your baby may attempt to mimic the actions you do, such as clapping your hands or playing with a toy. This shows cause-and-effect understanding.
• Problem Solving: They might solve small problems, like how to retrieve a stuck toy or how to open a lid.
• Social Interaction: They respond to their name, exhibit affection for known faces or objects, and may display likes or dislikes for individuals or toys.
• Language Communication: Babbling sounds will be more diverse, and they may start to comprehend simple words or commands such as "no" or "come here".

Here are key social milestones for a 10 month old:

• Attachment: Your baby will strongly attach to major caregivers and can become distressed by separation from them.
• Social Interaction: They like being surrounded by known faces; they might say this through smiling or laughing over the joy of being around these people.
• Imitation: They imitate their environment; they wave bye-bye or clap their hands to show that they are indeed learning socially.
• Reaction to Strangers: The baby may have reactions or avoid strangers. This shows that the baby is gradually becoming conscious of social dynamics.
• Play: They play simple social games such as peekaboo and may even play interactive games such as passing an object back and forth.

Language and Speech Milestones Development for a 10 month old:

• Babbling: Your baby might utter different sounds and syllables that sometimes get strung together to sound like words, such as "baba" or "dada".
• Simple word Understanding and Vocabulary: They will likely associate with or say common words or phrases like "no," "bye-bye," or their name.
• Gestures: The infant conveys meaning using gestures, such as pointing, waving, or reaching out to get something.
• Imitation of Sounds: They babble by imitating the sounds and voice patterns of adults or older children.
• Phonetics: She will use sounds by creating variations of different pitches and tones to develop into words eventually.
• Primitive Communication: He may use sounds and gestures to communicate a need; thus, they express the first expressions of intent to communicate.

Play Milestones for a 10 month old:

• Exploratory Play: A baby plays with different objects to know the feel or properties of an object by touching and mouthing them.
• Cause and Effect: They learn about cause-and-effect results, like shaking a rattle or pressing a button to make a noise or light appear.
• Simple Games: They start playing simple interactive games like peekaboo, which will help them develop their sense of object permanence and social interaction skills.
• Stacking and Nesting: Your child will stack blocks or fit things into containers, showing that he is developing motor skills and advancing problem-solving abilities.
• Imitative Play: They will start imitating the acts of adults, like pretending to talk on the phone or using a spoon, which suggests cognitive and social skill development.
• Social Play: This is the stage in which they become interested in playing with other children, though this time, it would be parallel play.

Physical and Motor Milestones for a 10 month old:

• Crawling: At this age, most babies are practising crawling and will become more confident in exploring their surroundings.
• Pulling Up: They can now pull themselves up in a standing position using furniture or any other support object and might stand with support from those objects.
• Cruising: Most babies start to cruise on furniture, using them as a support system while walking.
• Independent Sitting: The child will be independent in sitting and can even sit to crawl or stand.
• Balance: They tend to remain aligned when sitting, stand up to an upright posture if supported, and get to try a few steps with support.

1. Stacking and Nesting Toys

2. Interactive Books

3. Push and Pull Toys

4. Musical Play

5. Sensory Bins

6. Imitation Games

7. Outdoor Explorations

8. Building and Construction

9. Big Simple Puzzles

10. Water Play

11. Toy Hide and Seek

12. Sensory Play

1. Encourage Movement

2. Encourage Communication

3. Create a Safe Environment

4. Gross Motor Skills

Developmental Delays:

Refusal to Feed:

Sleep Disturbances:

Behavioural Changes:

Health Symptoms:

Teething Troubles: