To still use buggy for 3 year old DD?

[pennypineapple]

DD goes to nursery four days per week. She turned 3 in April.

We recently bought her a scooter, which she loves. But at the end of the day at pick up she often says she is too tired to ride it and we have tears and tantrums and her demanding to be carried all the way home.(Due to our working patterns, 90% of the time DH does drop off and I do pick up so it's me who gets the pleasure of this).

The walk home from nursery is just under half a mile and there is no way I can carry DD, my work bag and the scooter so the journey home is torturous.(Just to add to the fun I'm also pregnant!)

I think we should reintroduce the buggy. DH is adamant that DD is too old and points out that very few of her peers use a buggy now, they all walk or use scooters (and he is right).

I honestly don't know if I am being unreasonable or not to think that it's ok to keep using the buggy for a while longer. Is she too old? AIBU?

I think it really depends on how OP is finding pregnancy...atm I can't walk half a mile, let along doing it with a complaining 3 year old!

I totally agree it's too short a distance to do in a car. My 2.5 year old does it on his bike or walks it every day. We have good waterproofs if it rains. There was some whinging at first etc and we had to make a game of it (race you to the next lamp post etc) but he's fitter now and does it with no trouble. I would not drive him 0.5 miles unless he was poorly/hurt himself.

I would use it ! DD same age and i still use the buggy a lot. anyone who judges conveniently always seems to be picking their child up in a car and haven't experience of walking miles each day in all weathers with a young tired child !
There is no way my small 3 year old is going to happily and in reasonable time walk the 5 miles a day required for school run's and go to nursery themselves. Some days they will walk but its generally day's when we aren't strapped for time and are able to do it at their pace

Oh and I am 30 weeks preg so carrying him is NOT an option & he knows this.

Depends on the child. If she's tired then use it. Especially as you are pregnant. Some kids don't like it my 2 year old point blank refuses to use it and will walk. They all did to be fair but we have ways walked so are used to it. Whereas my frie D's 4.5 year old still uses it. Don't see the problem. All kids are different

No I donotwatchloveisland. That's great if that suits your particular 2 year old. At 2 and 3 mine wouldn't have walked half a mile when tired. He is 10 now, we still don't own a car and he walks and bikes for miles to get everywhere Using a buggy age 2 3 and 4 when he needed to didn't affect him negatively one little bit.

4 year olds in buggies?! No wonder there’s an obesity epidemic. It’s a mile walk to nursery but we have excellent public transport, so we walk there and bus home.
Well we definitely walk more than a mile, and wouldn't catch a bus for a mile walk.
So we all have different lifestyles.

Can you imagine? 😳 people having different lives to your own?

I am pregnant
I have a toddler
It is bloody hot

I take the buggy on our walks because he will get tired even on his bike and I am not carrying a bag, a bike and a toddler. Not even for 5 minutes.

Do what suits you, I personally don't give a flying duck if people think it is wrong, my toddler is always on the go.

My2bundles you have been lucky. A relative was in a similar position & her 9 yr old (altho not overweight at all) is still terribly unfit and prone to choosing the sedentary option. As a school age child she always chose the buggy board on her younger siblings pushchair etc and now she just has no fitness to walk any distance at all and it's a much bigger battle getting a 9 year old fit than a toddler.

Yes all kids are different, so not knowing how mine might turn out regardless, my aim is to minimise the chance of him turning out unfit by reducing time spent sedentary.

Who cares! use it! make both your lives easier, why be so hard on yourselves?

DS is two and a half and I can't imagine stopping using the buggy any time soon - I don't drive and walk a mile to nursery every day and then another mile to work, and then back.

I guess will stop using it when popping into town which is closer.

If you don't drive your child will prob end up walking way more than other kids when older anyway

the people willing to spend 1.5 hours plus each day pushing an older child in a buggy, do any of you work full time?

Not 1.5 hours typically with the buggy, although I was probably walking 1.5 hours in total including the work - nursery section. Yes, work FT. What do you think the alternative is? Teleport? I don’t see how your solution of a balance bike or making the child walk is going to get us there any faster, and it’s not like childcare and work are optional parts of most people’s day.

In some circles (FB groups I was in/Insta -very middle class, wooden toy type people) I noticed a competitiveness about not using the buggy as if it made you morally superior to struggle. If there was a pic of the child in a buggy the poster would always have an “excuse” as to why they were in the buggy like they had to justify it

Curiouscatgotkilled

Like many aspects of parenting it's rarely about making our lives easier.

I could make my life way easier by feeding my kid ready made junk food, parking him in front of the telly all day, not bothering to help with homework etc. Oddly enough most of us choose the harder option there because in the long run it usually works out better.

Loads of people at our school have three year olds in buggys for the walk home. Just quicker and easier.

"the people willing to spend 1.5 hours plus each day pushing an older child in a buggy, do any of you work full time?"

Yes, which is why my toddler is in nursery for 10 hours a day, and why they can't walk a mile back home after that.

I'm really surprised that some people consider 3 to be too old for a buggy.

DD1 turns 3 in November and the journey from our house to preschool is down a road with no real pavements (not in the UK). It takes twice as long as it should to push her there because I have to work around any cars coming past and I'm up and down the kerb constantly. There's no way I'd want her walking that. And definitely not scooting! The only reason I persist is because it's a bloody good preschool.

This thread has made me very confused about what I should do with her from November onwards

53rdway. I'm in a similar position to you in terms of amount walking per day (some with child some without). If the sections including child (whether on foot or in a buggy) totalled 1.5 hours or longer there just wouldn't be time to get to work, be there 8 hours and have enough time when getting home for us to eat & bath etc before bed.

Asdq no offence here (I am genuinely curious how you make this work).

10 hours in nursery plus 1.5 hours in buggy, how do you fit in getting them up and dressed in a morning and have time to get them bathed and into bed at night? You must be seriously efficient as I find it a real rush with mine in nursery 9 hours and only a half hour travel time! imagining you flying at superhero speeds

But then I am also really surprised by people who will choose a nursery miles and miles away when they don't drive hmm

It’s not that easy. We had no plans to send the twins to nursery until they were getting free hours at 3, but then one got DLA so we got some funded hours at 2. Enquiring in December, most nurseries were booked up. We took what we could get. The boys absolutely love it and they have ASD so struggle with new people and I don’t want to move them.

We’ve just applied for an EHCP for both boys - if they get it the most suitable school is a 40 minute drive away, worse at rush hour! They could go there as soon as an EHCP is granted as they take kids from 2, so I don’t want to move them to another nursery for a few months and then to a different place.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland, you’d manage if you had to, as the rest of us do. We all make our own situations work. (I get up very early.)

You seem to struggle with understanding that other people are in different circumstances than you, have different children to you, so will make different decisions to you. It doesn’t make them lazy parents or martyrs every time they make a different choice to yours.

I haven't said anyone is a lazy parent (I'm up at 6am myself).

I'll admit I get defensive because there's an attitude in MN that cars are unnecessary, & that people who dont use buggies much MUST be just driving door to door constantly & are thus lazier than those who use buggies, when actually there is a third option of people who are in a position to use a buggy relatively infrequently but don't drive much either (I travel by public transport for work for example).

Then there are also people on threads who will quote their undeniably legitimate example of a SN child with poor mobility or unusual work pattern or rare remote location.... these will all be a minority. The vast majority of UK public lives in cities or towns with facilities close by, such that councils have to provide transport where primary school places are more than 2.5 miles away.

There are SOME people who just choose to use a buggy because it is just plain easier for them and they can't be arsed. That's fine, but why can't anyone else present an alternative. Obviously it is healthy and positive for a 3 year old to walk half a mile for the majority of situations, so in asking if something is "reasonable" I'm considering typical circumstances for the majority, not outliers.

Yep of course I use mine with 5 and 3 year old big double buggy that fits them fine. When they are so tired it makes everyone's life easier.

E.g. just because YOUR 3 year old needs to go in a buggy for half a mile, doesn't mean there can't be a view that it's generally reasonable to expect most 3 year olds to walk half a mile.

I only gave my honest opinion here. I probably wouldn’t be brave enough to say it to someone in real life but isn’t that one of the benefits of an anonymous forum? So that people don’t just say what they think they should have to say.

I’ve already said there might be a time and a place. And it’s just my opinion. People are free to disagree or say they don’t give a shit what I think.

I am from the school of nobody asked you for your opinion but the OP literally did (not me personally but people here as a collective). There’s no point starting with AIBU...if it really means I only want to hear opinions completely in line with my own.

I’m not a snob really and lived on a council estate until becoming an adult. If I’m judgey about being common/uncouth it’s because when I see older kids in pushchairs they’re often holding a Greggs sausage roll or a bag of crisps while the mum puffs on a tab wearing trackies