Your Baby's 10th Month

Get Your Running Shoes

By this age, babies are usually very mobile. As a result, so are you! Their abilities to move include crawling quickly, flip-flopping into sitting from virtually any position, and possibly even walking.

Don't rely only on your childproofing to keep Baby safe: His job right now is to move, explore, and learn. You need to be one step ahead of him. (Learn from other parents' babyproofing mishaps, here.)

Cruisers

A coffee table is just the right height for baby to pull up to a stand and practice cruising or taking steps while holding on for balance. He may cruise from one piece of furniture to another around your living room. This is very satisfying because Baby can now view an object and move himself while standing up to reach it. He may even hold on with one hand and make attempts to bend down and pick up an enticing toy off the ground. Or, watch his face as he lets go and stands all by himself. This is a triumph—only to be topped by those first few steps that are just around the corner.

What about Walkers?

You may have been given a walker as a gift or offered one as a hand-me-down. Infant walkers are controversial. Some parents swear by them. Developmentally, however, experts feel that walkers do not support the skills needed for Baby to learn how to walk as they utilize muscles in a different way. Basically, walkers enable babies to do things that they are developmentally ready to do on their own. They are also the cause of more accidents than any other type of children's toy, particularly if they are used near the top of stairs or in the kitchen near a hot dish. These examples may seem obviously unsafe, but the point is, walkers allow children to move very quickly. Since the children are standing, they are at a better vantage point to reach things. Combined with non-stop curiosity, a walker could potentially put Baby in a very unsafe situation.

This being said, you may decide not to offer your child a baby walker and then find him using a chair or another large item to push and walk at the same time. This is a bit different because these items are heavy and not on wheels, so he cannot really get the same speed that he can with a commercial walker.

(Are you thinking, "But what about Exersaucers?"