D turns 4 next month and says he wants a bike! We've only had the three wheeled scutterbug thing before. Are you a fan of balance bikes or the tried and true training wheel method? Experiences and recommendations please!
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We haven't gotten to that point yet, but I'm definitely planning to do a balance bike. I've seen firsthand friends' kids who learned to ride a bike so quickly with a balance bike, I think they're awesome!
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My 2.5 yo finally got interested and is rocking out his balance bike. It seems so awesome the way they learn naturally. We haven't transitioned to peddles yet obviously so this isn't ultimately helpful, but, the balance bike argument makes so much sense to me! I am not a purist though, he has a trike (the crappy radio flyer pushing transition one) that he doesn't understand the idea of peddling and just uses his feet to push along.
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Balance bike worked really well for my LO. He started with it when he was around 3 and had moved on to a pedal bike a couple months before he turned 4. He still needed us to run along holding the pedal bike a bit in the beginning, but after a couple days he was all on his own. And it was better for me since I'm lazy.
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Balance bike has worked well for us.
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I would add to the chorus of balance bike. We did training wheels and my almost 6-year-old is still dependent on them!
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Balance bike! Actually LO used both because the transition was a little too scary for him. He used the training wheels for a few months before he got the hang of it.
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I'm the outlier I guess... We did not really like the balance bike. DD never really got the hang of it, so I took a chance a few months ago and got her a bike with training wheels and she really took off on it. I'm experimenting now with DS to see if it will work for him. I do think that they are worth a try though.
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Balance bike worked really well for us. They started at age 2 though. My nearly 4 year old then got a pedal bike and it was 15-30 minutes and he was off. My two year old will probably get a pedal bike next year at age 3.
Have you thought about getting your 4 year old a pedal bike and just leaving the pedals off until she can balance and then add the pedals back on? That way you don't have to buy two bikes...
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We got her a bike with training wheels right after she turned 3. She got the hang of it really fast. I don't understand balance bikes! I don't know any one that has one irl, I only hear about them online.
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At 4, I would go whole hog and get a real bike, no training wheels. My son had a crappy balance bike (all plastic) that he never figured out how to ride. Then he had a very heavy training wheel bike that was too heavy and cumbersome to pedal, and he barely rode it (maybe a dozen times in 18 months). At 4, we bought him a much lighter bike with no training wheels. He learned to ride it in two sessions. He's not super athletic or coordinated, so I was pleasantly surprised that he learned so quickly.
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I lamented over this for sometime before deciding on a 16" aluminum bike with training wheels. We got it for DD's early 4th birthday. We live where the summers are short, so we intended to buy a size she can grow into and enjoy for a few years. At it's lowest setting, the bike fit her almost perfectly. She rode a trike previously and this was her first "big girl bike". I was surprised by how fast she maneuvered with it. There was no learning curve at all - she loves her bike, even now.
What I really like was that she could automatically enjoy the bike. DD can be overly cautious and stubborn when it comes to new things, and she's not very well coordinated. With that in mind, having training wheels was definitely the ideal choice for us. There were no tears, just fun
Having said that, at 1 year later, she still uses the training wheels. She's not tall enough to have both her feet safely planted on the ground just yet, but has been eager to ride without it. I really don't mind at all when she learns to ride for reals. It'll come eventually and right now, I'm just grateful that she enjoys riding.
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My 4yo has been loving his bike with training wheels. We just got it for him and he's doing great. He never liked the balance bike. But we keep bringing it out to see if he'll get into it. He is also obsessed with his micro mini scooter.
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DS loved his balance bike - he could go so fast on that thing! Then we moved to a real bike and he had no clue how to use pedals??!!! What a pain! Anyway, he did eventually learn.
With DD we are using training wheels but practicing balancing on her 2 wheel scooter
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So we haven't done this yet, but looking up balance bikes on-line, I don't really get what the point is? They don't have pedals?
My kids have trikes already and Xander knows how to pedal, so I feel like getting a balance bike would be a step backwards?
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@Adira: It doesn't have pedals, but unlike a trike it doesn't stand up on its own. So you have to learn to balance to ride it. The thinking is that it's harder to learn to balance than learn to pedal, so once they learn to balance it's an easy transition to pedaling a regular bike.
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@Jennibenni: Thanks for the explanation!
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We did a bike with training wheels, but we have yet to take them off...my kid is doing "wheelies" with his bike so I kind of feel like I need to keep the training wheels on a little while longer just to keep him a little restrained.
I wanted to get a balance bike, but my son learned to pedal right away, so we just now need to sort out the balance thing on a regular bike.
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@knittylady: LOVE the balance bike!! DS1 really enjoyed using it, and learned quickly. DS2 has started on one (he's almost two)
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At age 4 I would just get a bike with no training wheels and not do a balance bike. 4 is old enough to ride a bike. Training wheels just slow down the learning process.
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My husband is huge into biking and says the current thought is that it's more important to learn how to balance first and then pedal, so to use a balance bike until they are REALLY solid on it and then switch to a bike without training wheels. DS is 5 and we are picking up his pedal bike so I can report back on how that transition goes LOL
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I would take LO to a bike shop and let them test out some with pedals and some without. We did that with DD last week and settled on a balance bike because of how she did compared with a pedal bike.
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My 3.5 never really got the hang of her balance bike, at least not more than being able to scoot around our driveway. We just got her a bike with training wheels and she is flying, we have so much fun going for bike rides around the neighbourhood. She couldn't do that with the balance bike
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My son (now 3yo) was given a balance bike for his second birthday and has pretty much mastered it. Someone also gave us a junky two wheel bike with tricycle-style pedals and training wheels, and it was almost impossible to pedal. He was desperate for a pedal bike so we got him a proper one, but he struggled to figure out how to pedal. So we put training wheels on it, and just yesterday he figured out the pedals!
I wasn't there, but my husband said he was only relying on the training wheels when he needed to stop and get off the bike.
He's only 3y2m so I think I will wait until he's motivated to remove the training wheels. He is really young for all this, and the current situation was driven by unsolicited gifts/hand-me-downs.
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I think I'm in the minority, but we haven't loved our balance bikes at all. Neither of the twins ever really figured out how to do more than scoot on them, which frankly isn't much fun so they never want to ride them. Maybe if they had someone to watch and figure out the whole gliding thing, they would like it better. We're going to get bikes with training wheels and hope the do better with that.
@Charm54: So glad to hear this!
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