To think buying bikes for no good reason is spoiling.....

[Namedilema123]

3 year old twins have balance bikes they got for Christmas. Absolutely nothing wrong with them. Today DH took the twins to Halfords to get something for his bike. Has come home with 2 bikes for them. Im livid.

They are bikes with stabilizers. His reasons fir buying them are 1. They we're 'only' £40 each. 2. Balance bikes are crap and they need stabilizers. 3. 'you should have seen their faces, they loved them and were having so much fun'.

My reasons for being pissed are 1. It was only yesterday we were discussing how the twins might be getting a bit spoilt between grabdparents taking them on days out every single time they look after them and us and we all needed to change behaviour 2. Bikes (regardless of price) are big ticket items and should be for birthdays or Christmas...just walking into a bike shop and getting them because they liked them is spoiling them. 3. I would prefer them to learn on balance bikes and skip stabilizers alltogether but that's a much less important point. 4. He didnt even call to discuss with me first.

AIBU???

As he is your D's father, surely he has a say in what he buys D's, you sound quite controlling.

Are presents only for birthdays and Christmas, spontaneous presents are good. So they would have to wait until then to have bikes, despite them really want and benefiting from them.

Around here children always get bikes for presents, I always think it looks fun on Christmas day when you see people cycling buy on their shiny bikes! I'm with you OP that it's an unnecessary purchase at this stage.

Why, bike riding is great for a child's motor development. Why wait until Christmas when it's cold and wet, the weather is nice, days are longer, it makes more sense to buy in spring/summer.

tinkly people buy balance bikes because decent, light weight children's bikes in a size tiny enough for a 2 year old are expensive. Most "bikes" sold with factory fitted stabilisers are heavy, have fixed wheel and solid tyred. They are very difficult to use as balance bikes.

My middle child loved his balance bike the way some children love a favourite soft toy between 18 months and 2.5 - he named it and it was the first thing he wanted every morning. He got so much use out of it, and eventually after dc3 moved on from it we sold it for almost what we'd paid for it (second hand in the first place).

toomuch very small kids often squeeze a hand break too hard and go over the handlebars. Back pedal brakes are safer for that reason. It only takes a couple of minutes to get the hang of hand operated brakes once a child is older and needs a bigger bike.

I’m more shocked he didn’t spend hours reading reviews and comparing bikes before deciding, rather than this slap dash approach.

Balance bikes are awesome for learning to ride. My ds never needed stabilisers - he got straight onto a pedal bike no problem.

We didn’t get one for dd as they were too heavy and she is very small. So she learnt the hard way with stabilisers.

Yabu. Bikes are a skill. My parents never gave them as gifts just when needed. Perfect time for next stage

Geese, what did we do in the bad old old days before these lightweight bikes. We still learned to ride. Gosh, kids now, would have a problem peddling the chopper, Grifter or BMX. Would love to buy D's 7 a reconditioned Raleigh Burner.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius I hear you with Correct number of bikes = n+1. It's just me and DH and we currently have 4 bikes in the shed. I also don't ride (if I can possibly help it). 🙄

Aeroflot die you never buy anything that wasn't available in the 70s? My parents used to put a seatbelt across 2 of us in the front passenger seat of the car, and strap the baby's carry cot into the back seat with dad driving and mum sitting next to the carry cot in the back. We survived more by luck than judgement Doesn't mean I thought it was daft to put my kids in proper child car seats 30 years later.

*did not die

Dd3 has a bday in november.
Her bikes have all been spring purchases. All a suprise
All v much enjoyed.

What are you on about blueskies, we are talking about bikes. Not cars without seatbelts, totally irrelevant.

very small kids often squeeze a hand break too hard and go over the handlebars

Blueskies I can see that that is a potential risk but it doesn't take long to teach them to go for the back brake first, a good habit for later life. I'd have thought the main issue with hand brakes at an early age is that they don't have the strength of grip to use them, but I think most kids are OK by 4 or 5 which is about the youngest age I'd like to see a kid racing off on a pedal bike anyway...

*Aeroflot" I am very obviously "on about" your daft "geez what did we do in the bad old days" post. Not everything which wasn't in common use in the UK in 1978 is intrinsically worthless.

Ohhhh I LOVED my Chopper! Feckin thing weighed an absolute ton but it was the coolest bike in the street (even though it was a hand me down from my big cousins and had Kellogg’s spoky dokys (sp?) on it)

Maybe I'm bitter. I wasn't allowed a chopper or a BMX because they were my younger sister's type of thing She was daddy's girl and parents labelled her the "tomboy" and gave he stuff my dad liked and me stuff my mum chose. I got a sensible "shopping bike" of which I have no special memories except having the stabilisers removed and being launched down a grassy slope to "learn" to ride it repeatedly at about 7 and obviously falling off a lot until I finally got the hang of it after what seems in memory like many failures. It wasn't much fun learning that way.

Nooo don't teach kids to use back brake first - sets up bad braking habits! The number of kids that come to our club saying that mum or dad told them not to use the front brake, and we have to persuade them this isn't the case.

Back to the balance bike debate - not really what this thread was supposed to be about! - taking pedals off a normal bike works but isn't as good as a balance bike. For a start the size - many kids start in a balance bike before they are two. A normal bike would be far too big.

Also a pp mentioned that kids don't get the thrill of whizzing along on a balance bike - have you ever seen a tiddler on a balance bike? They enable small kids to do things on bikes that would be way beyond them on a pedal bike.

They really do help kids learn to ride bikes younger - the vast majority of kids I know can ride at 4. Many of them were 3. A fair few of them were 2. And my own dc is not the only 1 year old I know who could ride a pedal bike.

OP, it sounds like you have a lot to deal with at the moment. I understand your pov, but there might be other things that are good about it, like the grandparents freeing you up for a bit more time with the baby, the 3 yos feeling well looked after and cared about, not jealous. Ask your dh to discuss purchases, of course, but I would try and meet him in the middle (ie him be slightly less fun Dad and slightly more responsible, but you say yes a bit more too, and don’t end up polarised). Hope you’re ok.

It sounds like GPs have the dc lots of the time. Maybe they could take them to the park with their balance bikes to learn properly, since they have the time to spare to take them to theme parks, etc?

Then maybe the dc will learn a valuable skill, they will spend time having fun with GPs but not having quite so many trips to special places and everyone, including OP, will be happy.

Or GPs could take dc to park to learn to ride their new bikes (with the stabilisers raised a little, so most of the time the stabiliser wheels aren't actually touching the ground, the way ds learned to ride a bike) and it's still a win-win.

My 4 year old never had a balance bike but can now ride a bike without stabilisers. Maybe if she’d had a balance bike she would have been riding a pedal bike at 3, but I’m not sure how that would have enhanced our lives particularly. Unless just for bragging rights (‘my DC could ride a bike at 3’) kind of thing?!
DD2 has a balance bike but hates it, she wants pedals.

I do see @Namedimmema123 's point with all her gripes tbh. Her DH and the grandparents are doing all the fun stuff, leaving Namedilemma to bare the brunt of children conditioned to expect non stop fun, which she can't deliver atm so recently posted partum and with the baby to juggle. She's been cast in the bad cop / boring parent role by everyone else, and the one having to deal with all the troughs after the peaks of excitement provided by grandparents and dad. The grandparents and dad doubtless mean well, but it's a bit shit for Namedilemma

Well it does if you do a lot of cycling as a family. I suppose it's a bit like learning to read at 2 or 3 instead of 4 or 5. No real benefit in the long term.

Blueskies I had a shopping bike I hated, whilst I just had to borrow my friends Chopper or Raleigh Burner. I definitely had bike envy. Those were cool bikes.