Riding bike without stabilisers - should we take wheels off?

[jasperc163]

DD1 has just turned 5 but quite tall and getting too big for her 14inch bike. We want to buy her a new one but not until she can ride without stabilisers.

I am planning on getting DD2 a balance bike for christmas but it will be too small for DD1 as its essentially a 12 inch bike (wish we had gone down this route in the first place). DD1 is very cautious and we are struggling to make any progress with me trying to hold onto the back of the seat (no concept of how to balance).

Should we be trying to take the pedals off DD1's bike (particularly once DD2 has hers) and see if we can make progress that way?

Any other suggestions as to how to get the idea of how to balance the bike through to her?
thanks

OOOPS!!! MEANT SHOULD WE TAKE PEDALS OFF :-)

Yes definitely. You might need to drop the saddle a bit too. Stabilisers prevent the child from balancing and balance bikes are definitely the way to go. She will learn how to balance and will then quickly master pedalling when you put the pedals back on.

Lol! Great typo!

I would, removing the pedals will create exactly the same effect and I can't speak highly enough of balance bikes. It might be that she doesn't pick up her feet and let it balance for a while, but if dc2 is learning at the time hopefully they'll 'get' it together.

thanks all - thats what we'll do then!

Yes definitely!

It worked for my ds. He rode without pedals for about a month. We popped them back on and the first time he got on the bike he was off with no help at all.

we couldn't get the pedals off my dds' bikes when we took the stabilisers off

we found though that simply dropping the saddles worked- just so they were able to put their feet down to balance. It made them feel safer, and they both picked it up in a day, despite being very wary to start off with