Stage8–10 m
8-10 months
They can move now. Your home is no longer safe.
Mobility arrives, and with it both a wider world and a wider set of hazards. Fingers get precise enough to pick up a single grain of rice, which means anything on the floor ends up in the mouth.
What to feed
- Milk
- Around 600-800ml a day across 3-4 feeds.
- Meal pattern
- Two to three solid meals plus one snack. The shape of three real meals starts to appear.
Can start eating
- Minced and small chopped textures, no longer puree
- Finger foods: soft noodle pieces, soft rice, steamed vegetable chunks
- Tofu, fish (bones removed), shrimp
- Whole egg, including the white
- Vegetables of every colour, not just carrot and pumpkin
Not yet
- Salt and sugar
- Honey
- Whole nuts, popcorn, hard sweets, whole grapes and cherry tomatoes (quarter them)
- Cow milk as a main drink
Worth knowing
- Texture must keep moving forward. Children kept on puree are more likely to refuse lumps after age 1
- Aim for red meat or liver at least once a day — iron requirements per kilo are near their lifetime peak here
- Let them use their hands and hold a spoon, however badly. This is where independent eating starts
- Practise with an open cup and start phasing out the bottle
How much sleep
12-15 hours a day
- Daytime
- Two naps, morning and afternoon; 11-12 hours overnight
An 8-10 month sleep regression is common and coincides with separation anxiety and new skills like crawling and pulling to stand. Practising the new skill enough during the day reduces the urge to practise it at 2am.
Vaccines in this stage
MMRDose 1
8 months · National programme (free)
A rash or fever 5-12 days later is a normal reaction
Japanese encephalitis (live)Dose 1
8 months · National programme (free)
What most children do by now
Gross motor
- Crawls, on hands and knees or commando style
- Gets from lying to sitting alone
- Pulls to stand on furniture and begins to cruise sideways
Fine motor
- Pincer grip: picks up very small objects with thumb and index finger
- Puts objects into a container and takes them out
- Points
Language
- "Mama" and "dada" begin to mean specific people
- Imitates sounds and intonation
- Understands high-frequency words like no and bye
Social and cognitive
- Peak separation anxiety
- Starts peekaboo themselves
- Checks your face before acting (social referencing)
This is what most children manage in this window, not a pass mark. A few months either way is common. The signals worth acting on are in the doctor section below.
Height and weight reference for this ageWhen to see a doctor
If any of these apply, do not wait for the next routine check.
- At ten months, no movement of any kind: no crawling, shuffling or rolling
- No pincer grip
- No meaningful syllables and no imitation of sound
- No response to their name
- No eye contact, does not follow where you point
- Loss of a skill they previously had — this one matters most
What to practise
- 01
Picking up peas
How · Put a few soft-cooked peas or small blueberry pieces on the tray and let them pinch them up.
Why · The pincer grip underlies every fine motor skill that follows: holding a pencil, doing up buttons, using chopsticks.
- 02
Pull up and squat down
How · With them standing at the sofa, put a toy on the floor and encourage them to squat down for it and stand back up.
Why · Squatting is harder than standing because it is all centre-of-gravity control. It is the last piece before walking.
- 03
The give-and-take game
How · Hold out your hand and say "give it to me", thank them theatrically when they do, then hand it back. Over and over.
Why · Turn-taking, requesting and giving combine here for the first time, and it is proof that they understand language.
Day to day
- Sweep the house: anything smaller than a ping-pong ball goes above one metre, cupboards get latches, kettle cords get tucked away, windows get restrictors
- Handle separation anxiety head on: say goodbye clearly rather than sneaking away
- Tooth counts vary enormously at this age (anywhere from 0 to 6). Do not compare
- Skip baby walkers. They delay independent walking and cause injuries
Common questions
- Do they have to crawl? Can they go straight to walking?
- Crawling builds hand-eye coordination, bilateral coordination and core strength. Skipping it is not a disorder, but it is worth creating more chances to crawl: floor space, not carriers or playpens.
- How do we ease separation anxiety?
- You do not ease it, you practise it. Play peekaboo, leave the room for ten seconds and come back, build up from there. The one thing that makes it worse is slipping away unnoticed, which teaches them you can vanish at any moment.