Training Wheels or Not?

Whether or not to use training wheels wasn't an issue until my parents passed along my childhood bike to my little girl. Prior to this moment, I fully intended to get her one of those balance bikes with no pedals which I felt made the most sense. It would allow her to learn to balance by choice, her feet could reach the ground, and so lifting them up would be more of a choice than it would be if she were teetering on the top of a taller bike.

I was planning on making the purchase and had it on all my wishlists in case family decided to bestow this gift on her before me when "BAM!!" my old bike came out of storage...that I got when I was about six or seven. As fun as it was to see it, I was kind of disappointed because I saw it as a hindrance to my little 3yo when it came to learning to balance! Everything was going smoothly though when it came to this bike, which is an old red and white Peugeot (as seen in the picture), and my father refinished some of the padding, put on some nice training wheels and so forth, so it was her official bike!

Things started out ok, a bit shaky, but we lived right by the Alki in West Seattle at the time and it was SO much fun to ride around with her, it was very flat and we could walk while she rode along the water, it was lovely.

Four and a half is how old she is now and I am realizing how un-independent this bike is inspiring her to be...I think it really is too big for her, and is good for big rides, though on the easement we live on now, it is kind of intimidating to try and turn such a big bike, especially when her little feet can't touch the ground!

When walking home the other day though the problem was solved when I walked by a great local non-profit bike shop that had a whole line of kids bikes outside, each costing only about $25! It happened to be the same day she was graduating from preschool and so I put one on hold right away. Just a few short hours my husband went and picked up a bike from there and unfortunately it was a different one because they had a policy about cash walk-ins that I didn't know about, so now she has 2 bikes about the same size. I'm happy though because I know they'll have other small kid sized bikes there and worst case scenario I can just re-donate the one we got and get a smaller one again.

Or she'll grow into it and we'll just give away one of the bikes and stick with what we've got. I think for my younger daughter though, I will get one of those pedal-less bikes for her to learn on, she's just over 1 year old now so I'll be getting that pretty soon.