We have covered all months of baby life until now, and you can find all the articles in the first year of a child’s life section. If you’re just starting with parenting, or you’re soon to be parent, you can start with the first month of newborn’s life.
A note before we start
This series shares our personal experience, with general information woven in - it is not medical advice. Every child develops at their own pace and the normal ranges for milestones are wide. Vaccination and check-up schedules also differ between countries. When in doubt, your pediatrician is the right address.
Of cups and cabinets
Oh, the joys of having a mobile and curious child! There are new surprises every day. Recently, she learned that she can open cabinets and drawers by pulling the handle. And more importantly, she learned that there are all kinds of interesting and unchewed stuff inside. Paper in all shape and forms is extra yummy. For now, our conversations about why we can't eat documents are in vain. Really, if I had any homework to do, excuse ”my baby ate it”, would probably be true. So it's time for another round of baby-proofing.
With the dangerous object safely tucked away, it's so fun to watch your child explore. Our girl is fascinated with cups and containers. Putting objects inside them, taking them out, stacking them, rolling them… It's amazing how much fun she can have with the plain kitchen dishware. Proof that you don't need fancy didactic toys - children learn all the time. Standard household objects provide plenty of learning opportunities. Like real little scientists, they will explore methodically. If I throw this on the floor will it fall down? Will it produce a “thump”? And this? And this? You think your child is just randomly throwing stuff, but actually, they are discovering physical laws of the universe! There is a method to this madness.
With all that experimenting, there is much more solo play. Of course, mommy or daddy must be in the visual radius. But more and more, she takes initiative in planning her activities. Like sliding around the apartment on the bowl. That is so fun. I bet our neighbors agree.
Wonder week(sssss)
And it's that wonderful time again (pun intended). Yes, another wonder week arrived. Is it me or they seem awfully frequent? It doesn't help that they last few weeks each. So really they are more of a never-ending wonder sequence. If you forgot (how could you?), wonder weeks are special periods in the baby's life. They are characterized by the 3 Cs: clinginess, crankiness and crying. Expect less sleeping for some time. (And the usual honest note: wonder weeks are a popular framework rather than confirmed science - we use the names because the descriptions matched our experience. More in our guide to developmental leaps.)
Another wonder week: clingy days often end with a brand new skill.
But underneath those unpleasant behaviors, huge mental leaps are taking place. Your baby is changing in some pretty monumental ways and you can expect it to reach major milestones during this period. So week 36 (approximately) is also called the world of categories. (You can get the exact dates of every leap for your own baby with our developmental leap calculator.) During this period children are starting to understand that some stuff are similar and some are different. Those are the basics of grouping and sorting. They could start arranging toys or food on their plate. For example, carrot goes on the one side and potato on the other. Everything is methodical and more deliberate. Like taking a piece by piece of the food and throwing it on the floor. Gravity! They will also see the tiniest speck of dust, pick it up with surgical precision and study it thoroughly. And then eat it. Sigh. Or, as we discuss next, give it to you. Here, you try! Such a sweet child.
No more give me, give me. Now we share!
A great thing that we noticed with the start of the tenth month is baby sharing her stuff with us. Not just stuff, food too! Oh, the food… She likes to lick it (maybe even chew it a bit) and then offer it to you. And even if you don’t like that broccoli, what can you do? Baby learns from your behavior right? So you need to take that slimy, half-chewed piece of broccoli, thank your child and eat it like it’s your favorite piece of food. Yummy! But it’s great when you play. Finally, you can have some meaningful interactions. The baby will give you stuff, you can manipulate the toy and baby will look. Then she'll take it back and try to figure out why did you have so much fun with it.
Sharing toys (and pre-chewed broccoli) is a big social step forward.
Also, her understanding really improved. The baby already understands the names of some objects. We love to say “go get the ball” and she looks around, sees the ball and goes to it and gives it to you. That is a priceless experience.
And now you can already see some meaningful communication. She will try to communicate something, mostly through some subtle interactions, so pay close attention. They are easy to miss and you don’t want to miss them. For example, our little girl really likes to bathe. And when I start to splash water with my hand, she really enjoys it. And when I stop, she takes my hand and puts it on the water, she wants me to continue until we are both soaked.
Skill down - Who needs hands when the mouth is perfectly fine
So with all that rapid development there must be some downsides, right? Well, maybe. Depends on how we parents decide to look at it. For example, we noticed how our little girl sometimes decides that hands are only for crawling, and mouth is for grabbing and carrying stuff. It looks really funny but as a parent, it makes you wonder. She looks like a little dog, crawling to the block, and picking it with her mouth and carrying around. If we had a dog, I would say she is trying to imitate it, but we don’t so… Maybe she just wants to show off with her new teeth, like: “Here! I have found their function! You can grab and carry stuff with the teeth, not just make endless holes in every cardboard object that crosses my path.” Funny, but we prefer using hands for carrying objects.
Another thing that regressed a bit is going down off the bed. In the ninth month with a baby article, we wrote about her new awesome skill of getting off the bed alone. This month, we have issues again. It’s like she’s confused and doesn’t know/want to do it anymore. She protests, opens arms in sign of wanting to be picked up and even when trying she doesn’t turn around and gets annoyed when coming to the edge of the bed. Well, at least she is not going on her head like before. The couch is just a little bit better story. We also need to go through many trials and errors until she manages to get down alone.
Short-lived wobbles in freshly learned skills are perfectly normal, especially when a child is working on a new milestone: skills that aren’t mastered yet can be put “on hold” while the baby builds something new. The pattern that genuinely deserves a check-up is different - a broad or lasting loss of skills the child had already mastered, especially language or social ones (babbling, gestures, eye contact). If you see that, talk to your pediatrician. Not to panic, but checking early is always the right move.
And that would be some important changes that we noticed in the tenth month of baby’s life. We are two months away from one year. Who knows what next month brings, maybe some big changes again. So be sure to visit us in a month to find out, we surely can’t wait to see what challenges the eleventh month brings.
