My son is 20 months. He's starting to try to walk with his stryder bike but isn't quite able to do it without us helping yet. I thought about giving him one of these 4 wheel bikes to just push around and have fun with in the house, but would it actually hold him back from learning the stryder bike?
For reference he's walking and running well on his own, thus, I think it's too late for the easy bike.
by Icy_Artichoke_8616
17 Comments
Yes. These don’t add much. If a balance bike is small and light enough (like Woom’s) a kid can pick it up easily before 2.
Id get a trike with pedals instead. Then he’s practicing balance on the stryder, and pedaling on the trike.
Bonus if he can haul his toys on the trike.
I din’t think it would do anything to hold him back. At that age he’s just a learning machine.
If it made him never use the balance bike that would be one thing but this would likely help him strengthen the muscles and coordination needed for other bikes if he used it a lot.
Disclaimer: I am not a parent and don’t know anything about 20 month olds, I just compulsively answer questions on reddit.
Mine didn’t like the balance bike, but he would sit on this and push it around the living room at around 18 months old. Really started to get into the balance bike around three.
Balance bike
After a while on the balance bike my kid was able to get on a standard bike and ride first try. No training wheels or stacks, endless laps around the basketball court.
Basically a scooter with a low seat, gives a better understanding of speed vs balance and the physics of leaning into turns / oversteer etc
My 14 month daughter is riding this type of bike since she was 1 year. I think for a 20 month kid you have better options. Around 2 years a child bike with sidewheels🙂
These are different than balance bikes and develop different skills. These are nice to just have around the house for activity. I assume you won’t have a balance bike inside. It won’t delay their ability to ride balance bikes…and you have like a year before the balance bike is really necessary (yes they can ride it before than but they don’t start ripping until like 2.5-3 yo).
Skip that kind. If they can walk with a Strider they’re fine. Given the ability to just sit on the four wheels… They’ll probably do that and avoid learning to balance on the Strider (which is actually more stable once they get going).
It’s fine. We had those, then moved to ones with one front wheel, and then when they were big enough, moved to actual strider bikes for outside. My kids are biking machines now, and years ahead of their classmates.
I think these are useful in building confidence and the pushing motion. My toddler hates their balance bike but will happily sit on something like this to move around. I think the balance bike is heavy to hold up even at 2.5.
We got this exact bike for my daughter when she turned 1.
She couldn’t quite handle a balance bike yet, but she did great with the 4 wheeled option.
She then transitioned to a balance bike somewhere close to 24 months.
I don’t think the 4 wheeled option he dared her in any way. In fact, I think it probably helped her becuase it allowed her to focus on just the kicking part to move forward and then the stirrig part after that.
By the time she was on the balance bike, all she needed to focus on was the balance portion.
We used these pre balance bike. They got him moving and zooming. Then, as soon as our dude was tall enough for a strider, he switched to that, and we left the sereed for indoor use only. He moved to a pedal bike at 2.5 and was riding well day one. I credit the sereed with getting him excited to ride.
In my opinion/experience yes. My toddler went from balance bike + tricycle separately straight to riding standard two wheel bikes with hand brakes as soon as they turned 3. They are the only one in our cohort who is this advanced at this age.
Every parent/child is different though and your child will respond to what you are comfortable and confident in, imo.
IMO these things seem to teach wrong habits of weirdly unstable 4 wheel locomotion and it’s just going to be more junk in your house after they move over to something else.
Edit: wait you already own a balance bike and they are sort of already using it? You are like any second away from an amazing breakthrough where they just take off. Take them to a place with lots of space and hard smooth ground like a basketball or tennis court or something. They are about to amaze you!
Buy it. Have fun with your kid. Don’t worry so much about development speed to balance and pedal bike.
it depends on the kid. these are great if he’s small enough, especially for inside the house, if you can find one free on FB marketplace (the only use for FB) it could be worth it. If he’s too big go with a stryder or little big bike (pretty good and converts into a pedal bike).
We used a strider with my youngest kid and they were pedaling before 2. My other kids used training wheels and they were 4ish before they were capable. From my experience, having a kid on balance bike early is the best thing you can do.
My kid went from one of these inside for the weeees, to a balance bike outside with no issues.