How's this for cute?

[sarahspins]

Yep, they just push along Once they really get the hang of it they can go surprisingly fast... and they get used to picking their feet up and "balancing" while moving, which seems to the be hard part of learning to ride for most kids, but it's much more natural/intuitive this way... they do it without knowing they are.

That's essentially how my oldest learned to ride (though not on a balance bike - he just didn't use the pedals, and we took the training wheels off a 12" bike and he was ALL over the place on it, and eventually figured out how to use the pedals once he had the balance thing down) and he was riding without training wheels at 3 years and 5 months He doesn't even remember "learning to ride a bike" because for him, it's just something he's always known how to do.

Of course, my middle kid has to break the mold and she's already worn out one skuut knock off and wants nothing to do with a "real" bike yet at 4 1/2.. I'm still toying with the idea of getting her a pink Strider

[Irulan]

You can always just pull the cranks on a regular bike for her.

I WISH these balance bikes had been around when my kids were small. The idea is you skip the whole training wheel crutch thing, and go right to pedaling. They teach themselves to balance, and get comfortable with balance AND speed, and the pedals come naturally, later.

The homemade way to make one is to put the seat all the way down, and take off the pedals and cranks.

[Tuckervill]

I would really like for that to work, but you have to put up with the other grandma's interfering. I got my grandson a cool Specialized balance bike for his 3rd birthday--even posted pics of him riding it like the wind. For his 4th birthday, his other grandma bought him an el-cheapo bike with training wheels. Now he's confused. He really doesn't want to ride either bike much anyway. Would rather play Thomas the Tank Engine. But he'll ride some day. I really wanted to see how that balance bike thing works out.

Karen

[Irulan]

You could fix up the grandma bike to be like the other one. (pull the cranks) I wonder if the "my pediatrician said THIS was best" line would work for your bike preference. I used for everything else the comments about diaper types, what kind of shoes I wanted the kids to wear. Seriouly, the grandmas were very respectful about how we wanted to do things, I wish you that.