At 10 months old, your baby is in the middle of one of the biggest developmental leaps of their first year, and that alone can explain weeks of disrupted sleep. Between new motor skills, separation anxiety, and shifting sleep needs, there are several overlapping reasons your baby may be waking more often, fighting bedtime, or taking shorter naps. Most of these are temporary and completely normal.
The 8 to 10 Month Sleep Regression
The most common explanation for sleep troubles at this age is the 8 to 10 month sleep regression. Between 8 and 10 months, your baby’s brain is undergoing a massive period of neurological development. They’re learning to crawl, pulling themselves to stand, experimenting with new sounds, and becoming far more aware of their surroundings. All of that mental and physical work makes it harder for them to settle down at night.
This regression typically lasts 2 to 6 weeks, though it can feel longer if sleep habits shift during that stretch. The good news is that it resolves on its own. The frustrating part is that there’s no way to skip it. Your baby’s brain is essentially too stimulated to power down the way it used to.
Separation Anxiety Changes Bedtime
Starting in the second half of the first year, babies develop two important cognitive abilities: they can tell one adult from another, and they understand object permanence (the idea that you still exist when you leave the room). These are huge milestones, but they come with a side effect. Your baby now knows you’ve left, and they don’t like it.
Separation anxiety can cause your baby to wake several times a night and cry for you, sometimes expressing a strong preference for one parent over the other. This stage can last for several months, gradually fading around the second birthday. At 10 months, you may be right in the thick of it. Bedtime resistance, crying when placed in the crib, and more frequent night wakings are all classic signs.
New Motor Skills Keep Them Practicing
If your baby recently learned to pull to a stand, you may have noticed them doing it in the crib at 2 a.m. Developmental milestones like pulling up, crawling, and cruising temporarily disrupt sleep because babies literally practice these skills in their sleep space. A baby who just figured out how to stand may pull themselves up in the crib and then cry because they haven’t yet learned how to sit back down. This is normal and short-lived. During the day, give them plenty of floor time to practice so the novelty wears off faster.
Teething Can Add to the Problem
Many babies are cutting their upper front teeth or lateral incisors around 10 months. Teething pain tends to be worse at night because there are fewer distractions. You’ll know teething is contributing to the sleep disruption if your baby is also showing daytime symptoms: increased drooling, fussiness, and chewing on everything they can reach.
If your baby has a fever, rash (other than a drool rash around their chin), or diarrhea, something other than teething is likely causing discomfort, and it’s worth looking into other causes.
Your Baby Still Needs 12 to 16 Hours of Sleep
Babies between 4 and 12 months need 12 to 16 hours of total sleep in a 24-hour period, including naps. At 10 months, most babies take two naps a day, and this is not the time to drop down to one. The transition from two naps to one typically happens between 13 and 18 months. If your 10-month-old is refusing a nap or fighting bedtime, it can look like they’re ready to drop a nap, but that’s almost always a sign of the developmental changes happening at this age rather than a true readiness for one nap.
Dropping a nap too early usually backfires. An overtired baby sleeps worse, not better. If naps have gone sideways, try keeping the schedule consistent for at least another few months before considering any transitions.
Hunger May Play a Role
At 10 months, your baby needs roughly 750 to 900 calories per day. About 400 to 500 of those calories should still come from breast milk or formula, which works out to around 24 ounces a day. The rest comes from solid foods, which your baby is still learning to eat in meaningful quantities.
If your baby is waking at night and genuinely hungry (eating eagerly when offered milk, then falling right back to sleep), they may need more calories during the day. Offering more calorie-dense solids like avocado, nut butters, or full-fat yogurt during daytime meals can help shift those calories away from nighttime feeds. That said, many night wakings at this age aren’t about hunger at all. They’re about comfort, habit, or the developmental factors above.
What a Good Bedtime Routine Looks Like
A consistent bedtime routine is one of the most effective tools for reducing night wakings in older infants. Research shows that predictable pre-sleep routines are associated with faster sleep onset, less wakefulness overnight, and longer total nighttime sleep. The key word is consistency. When the same sequence of events happens every night, your baby’s brain starts associating those activities with sleep.
A good routine doesn’t need to be long or complicated. Dim the lights, give a bath or a gentle massage, change into pajamas, read a short book or sing a lullaby, offer a final feeding, and place your baby in the crib. White noise can also help signal sleep time. The whole routine can take 20 to 30 minutes.
One approach that helps many families is placing babies in the crib drowsy but not fully asleep. This gives them the opportunity to develop self-soothing skills, which means they’re better equipped to put themselves back to sleep when they wake between sleep cycles at night. A shortened version of the same routine before naps helps reinforce the connection between these cues and sleep throughout the day.
The Sleep Environment Matters
Small environmental details can make a big difference. The recommended room temperature for babies is 16 to 20°C (roughly 60 to 68°F). A room that’s too warm is one of the most common and easily fixable causes of restless sleep. If you can’t cool the room, use lighter clothing and bedding, and open a door or window if it’s safe to do so.
Keep the sleep space dark. Even small amounts of light can interfere with your baby’s natural sleep hormones. Blackout curtains are worth the investment, especially in summer months or if streetlights are near the nursery window. The crib itself should have a firm, flat mattress with only a fitted sheet. No pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, or bumpers. These guidelines remain the current recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics for reducing the risk of sleep-related infant deaths.
How Long This Phase Lasts
If the core issue is the 8 to 10 month sleep regression, you’re looking at 2 to 6 weeks of rougher nights before things improve. If separation anxiety is the main driver, it tends to be more gradual, peaking in intensity and then slowly easing over the coming months. Teething disruptions are usually the shortest, lasting a few days around each new tooth.
The most important thing you can do during this stretch is stay consistent. Keep nap times and bedtime at roughly the same times each day. Stick to the bedtime routine even when it doesn’t seem to be working. Avoid introducing new sleep associations (like bringing your baby into your bed or rocking them fully to sleep) that you’ll need to undo later. The disruption feels endless in the moment, but at 10 months, your baby’s sleep architecture is maturing rapidly, and most families see real improvement within a few weeks.