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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To collect Reception age DS from school in a buggy?

313 replies

CoffeeMum · 03/04/2012 16:23

Theoretical question for now, as DS won't start Reception until September, but i'm just wondering...

I also have a DD, two years younger than DS, so she'll be in a buggy on the school run. I'd planned to pop her in the single buggy, with DS on foot [school is 15 minutes away from home]. We do also have a double buggy, which I was on the verge of getting rid of, but now I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to take the double buggy on the school run in the autumn. Sometimes it'll be raining, and we'll want to get home asap, rather than at child-pace Hmm, but mostly, because I think alot of the time during the first term, he's going to be shattered from starting school. On those days, i'd just pop him in the buggy.

However, would it be completely laughable to even think about putting a school age child in a buggy, no matter what [SN aside, obviously]? Do any of you put a Reception age child in a buggy, or know people who do? Is it very rare to do so?

Thanks for you thoughts all Smile

OP posts:
AThingInYourLife · 03/04/2012 17:51

"15 mins at 4 year old pace is very, very different from adult pace."

Yeah, my 4 year old can walk way further in 15 minutes than I can.

Juule · 03/04/2012 17:52

I agree wth Flightty Tue 03-Apr-12 16:54:00

Keep the double just in case. You might find you never use it but then again you might be kicking yourself wishing you had it. Keeping it is cheaper than having to get another or just struggling on at the times you wish you'd kept it.

Sometimes you just want to hurry up home.

There were times that my infant school-age children got in the baskets under the double buggy:o and hitched a ride.

heliotrope · 03/04/2012 17:52

Based on our reception kids you're more likely to have a problem catching him up than him catching you up! They tend to run off ahead with mummies all shouting at them to stop at the roads.

UnChartered · 03/04/2012 17:53

bike sheds?

i suppose there has to be some use now the teachers can't smoke at work Grin

OriginalJamie · 03/04/2012 17:53

I used to have a problem when mine were little -

15 mins at DS2s pace = 2 mins
15 mins at DS2s pace = 30 minutes, stopping to examine every lade of grass, leaf, caterpillar and dog poo

Flightty · 03/04/2012 17:53

It's not like my children/other people's children get no other exercise.

We have a large garden, luckily, and they are always out there and they love to run about. But running about by a very busy road, up a hill, for a mile and a half is not really feasible. If it were a pleasant coutry walk through a field or a park or something, then it would be far far more use to them and to me. But it isn't, it's a horrible walk, and dangerous for them to go ahead or run.

Horses for courses.

usualsuspect · 03/04/2012 17:53

I lived next door to the school Grin so I don't know why I'm joining in tbh

PestoPenguin · 03/04/2012 17:54

They're kid-sized ones specially for the children's bikes and scooters. All the local schools have them. It is crap when you bang your head on them (how many 4 year olds lock their own bike up Hmm?)

OriginalJamie · 03/04/2012 17:55

Flightty - you are right. And FWIW, I don't think anyone else on here cares as much as you think they do.

Flightty · 03/04/2012 17:57

Jamie, thankyou Smile

The irony is he does walk quite easily when required. I just don't think people ought to be bullied into making their kids walk under threat of mockery. That to me isn't kind.

scottishmummy · 03/04/2012 17:57

no, he needs to get used to the walk,the routine
why will he be shattered?it's school not workhouse
you're being a bitty over precious about this

bronze · 03/04/2012 18:01

My mum used to occasionally push me home when I was in reception. I should add that at that age I could outwalk most of my peers. My parents didn't drive and we did a lot of walking. Even holidays consisted of walking miles. I found reception incredibly tiring though and the walk home was sometimes too much. After the first week or so she found riding her bike over and then me sitting on it being pushed was easier.

I still don't drive and still walk miles and miles as do my children but if one of them was very tired walking home from reception I wouldn't have a probelm with using a pushchair. Except I dont have one as I've always used a sling and now reins. SO no I don't believe it necessarily sets you up for the future.

AThingInYourLife · 03/04/2012 18:05

"It is crap when you bang your head on them."

Smoking or snogging?

wannaBe · 03/04/2012 18:08

IMO the reason why four and five year olds cannot walk for distances is because they're never made to. The earlier children walk the moe used to it they become.

This idea of babying four and five year olds to the extent they still go in pushchairs is ridiculous. Is it any wonder we have an obesity epidemic in this counry and that there is concern for the health of our children?

theDevilHasTheBestMNNames · 03/04/2012 18:08

IME it not the other DC that notice and say anything.

It is the other adults and while the comments to me are annoying some people do feel need to tell the DC directly they are lasy Angry. The are frequently the people who drive round the corner - they often seem to think they are being helpful Hmm.

Pandemoniaa · 03/04/2012 18:10

Reception is tiring. But please don't push your dc home in a double buggy. Our neighbour's pfb was always collected from school in a buggy (a similar distance to walk) and while I'm not condoning mockery, it followed this boy throughout his entire school career. In Year 11 he was still described as "You know K - he's the kid that went to school in a pushchair".

A buggy board or a scooter would be a much better idea.

Eggrules · 03/04/2012 18:10

Some kids may be unkind and tease - others may just be surprised and question your DC. I would be morto to push my DS is a buggy to and from school but, like MickyDodger, agree you should do what you want.

scottishmummy · 03/04/2012 18:13

he needs get used to the walk
he does need pushed in a buggy like a pampered prince
15min is not an onerous undertaking
no wonder kids get obese and reluctant to exercise if they can't sustain a 15min walk to school,this is nothing to do with other parents. it is everything to do with why you're even considering this

TroublesomeEx · 03/04/2012 18:20

OP, I think that by the time your DS starts school, you'll be a bit Blush that you were even asking this now Smile.

At this stage of the year, Reception-children-to-be seem very young and you wonder how they'll ever cope. The reality is that they do. Even the ones who take a little longer than others to settle into the routine etc.

He really doesn't need a buggy. I've taught in reception and have never seen a child turn up to school in a buggy.

The first term in reception is all about making friends and settling in. If he dozes off in the afternoon, the teachers will leave him too it, and he'll be pestering to go to the play area on the way home. He'll be ready for this next exciting adventure in his life.

Unless of course you give him reason to think he's not ready for it. Good luck!

Flightty · 03/04/2012 18:32

Wannabe, I do question your logic. I doubt that obesity as a political or social issue has anything to do with 5yo children being taken home from school in pushchairs.

Not judging by the almost unanimous cries of YABU on this thread, anyway...it looks like no one actually DOES this.

It's like the dummy thing. Children who have dummies when they are three? Shocking stuff. They're bound to become smokers/unable to speak coherently/something else entirely unrelated and bad.

I had a dummy when I was 7. I don't smoke, I talk pretty fluently, yes I'm a freak because I condone buggy use for small children but that's not because I had a dummy. Oh no, That's because I wasn't breastfed.

bronze · 03/04/2012 18:32

Yes it's amazing how all those children who get driven to school manage to learn to walk for 15 minutes if they didn't get the training when they were in reception Hmm
And isn't every single one of them obese...

StringOrNothing · 03/04/2012 18:33

I very occasionally slung DD over my arms while I pushed DS in the pushchair in her first term in reception (more usually due to tantrums than tiredness Blush but the two are of course related)
Is your journey 15 minutes at brisk pushchair pace or 15 minutes with a dawdling 4 year old?

CrunchyFrog · 03/04/2012 18:34

DS1 used a buggy for the whole of reception year.

Hoik them judgy pants. Grin

Nobody has ever called him names or laughed at him. All of his little friends get driven about in their lovely cars, we walk, come rain, hail or (occasionally) shine. But using a wheeled contraption without a motor, to go a distance further than most of the others drive, is weird and wrong? That is interesting.

(Yes, DS1 has SN, but so what, you wouldn't know to look at him. So you lot would have a field day!)

HugAPoorPoorDalek · 03/04/2012 18:47

I'll probably continue to use the pram, although DD often uses the step at the back and I stick all the gumpf into the chair.

Works best for me. Sometimes she's tired and it's just simpler to give her the option of a ride over walking. If she's happy to walk, then I don't stop her unless she's being extremely naughty. I have trouble handling her behaviour though, and it's for my own health and peace of mind more than her tired legs.

funkybuddah · 03/04/2012 18:56

It's 15 Mims, does he still use the buggy now? Neither of mine have used a buggy past 4yrs and we have no car etc

It's really not far, he won't be that tired that he can't wall (does he go to nursery/preschool)

My ds never seemed that tired, we had trips to park after too. Regarding bad weather, there will.always be bad weather not just the first term etc.

Ds starts reception in September, she is small for her age and will be walking to and from school, currently she walks 15 Mims to pre school, spends 6 hrs there, walks to the park, spend 1:5hrs there, walks home and still runs rings around me.

They are resilient little things