to skip balance bike

[blondieblonde]

Our DD is nearly 4 and wants a bike. She's never had one before, though at playschool they have tricycles she can ride.

Would I be unreasonable to buy her a proper bike and start teaching her to ride on that? Or should I buy her a balance bike to get her started, though she's quite old and might not need it for long.

Anyone taught their kid on a proper bike and skipped the balance stage?

I can't recommend a balance bike enough. My DS had stabilisers, had so many accidents on them and took a while to adjust when they were removed. My DD had a balance bike (about £20 for a wooden one on eBay) and had no problem at all riding a bike straight after. Do not bother with stabilisers, balance bike all the way!

My Dd is definitely not fearless and learnt to ride a pedal bike at 4 by first using a balance bike. The whole point is that you learn to balance gradually, so yes, they start by walking their feet along the floor then as they gain confidence they start to lift their feet up for longer and longer stretches. Moving from a balance bike to a pedal bike is then not such a big change, especially if you keep the seat low enough to put feet down. I'm a total convert to the balance bike method, Dd has inherited my balance/coordination but has learned to cycle 7 years earlier than I did.

I saw a brilliant video about adults learning to ride a bike. It demonstrated that stabilisers actually require you to shift your body weight in the opposite way to how you need to balance without them. Thus stabilisers can actually delay learning .
We bought s bike for DS when he was about 4. Took the pedals off for a couple of weekends , put them back and away he went .