We propose and demonstrate an efficient power-saving optical network unit (ONU) based on upstream traffic monitoring for 10-Gb/s wavelength division multiplexed passive optical networks (WDM-PONs). The power-saving mode controller uses a ${mu}$-processor and traffic monitoring modules followed by the proposed power-saving processes to operate the sleep mode ONU. The power consumption of the ONU is effectively reduced from 19.3 W to 6.4 W when no traffic from the users is detected. In addition, we design a power-saving mechanism based on a cyclic sleep mode operation to allow a connectivity check between the optical line terminal and ONU. Our calculation results show that the WDM-PON ONU reduces the power consumption by around 60% using the proposed mechanism.