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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

How do you get a reluctant 3.5 year old to walk?!?!

16 replies

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 14:08

I need some help!

My son is 4 in June and he will not walk.

He has all the energy of a whippet, will run round the park for hours but won't walk home

His playgroup is literally 5 mins away, 4 turns and we are there, he will not walk.

Trouble is we walk ALOT, its our only transport as we have no car, we ocaasionally get the bus if we are going somewhere really far away but we happily walk 5 miles a day, each day.

Of course I don't expect my son to do that striagh away.

But thats where the problems start.

His older brother was a walking machine at 3.5, he would walk for hours.

We have tried a buggy board he wont stay on it,

so hes in a buggy, big bloody 3 wheeler

I really want him out of it now but hes really, really small for his age, and petite and tiny!

I really need help with this!

Hes starting reception in Septemebr and I don't want him to be the only child being dropped off in a buggy!

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Original poster

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 14:10

Sorry what I meant to say was the reason hes in a buggy is because we wallk so much,

for short journeys we could make him walk but its impossible for us to make him walk all the time when we walk so far and he is so small.

I don't know what to do

OP posts:

TheProvincialLady · 06/03/2010 14:11

Sell the buggy right now and just get on with it IMO. If there is no buggy then you and he will be forced to walk. You might have to stay closer to home for a while whilst he adjusts, but he will soon realise that no amount of fuss is going to get his buggy back.

TheProvincialLady · 06/03/2010 14:13

My DS1 is a couple of months younger than yours and would also have preferred to stay in the pushchair. I don't drive either so it was convenient for me to let him, but in the end I just had to make a few adjustments to my own lifestyle and now he is able to walk most places, but we catch the bus if it is going to be a very long way.

bran · 06/03/2010 14:16

My DS was just the same, full of beans but hates to walk as a way of getting from A to B. One of these really helped a lot as they are very stable and easy to use. My DD uses one now as well and she has just turned 2 yo. She can belt along at a fast adult walking pace for at least half a mile without whinging. When she's tired she puts both feet on the scooter and I pull her using the handlebars.

I'm going to get the next size up of the same 3-wheel style scooter for DS soon as he's a bit too tall for his now. He's 5.5 now and still whinges like mad if we have to walk anywhere.

juuule · 06/03/2010 14:18

I wouldn't get too worked up about it. If you need to walk long distances then I'd stick with the buggy until your son feels happier walking. As he gets bigger he'll more than likely prefer to walk anyway.

Some of mine who walked got back into their younger siblings buggy around 3-4y when they were tired of walking.

Do whatever you think is best at the moment for you and your child. Don't be swayed by what you think that other people might think. It's whatever works best for you. It's another 6m until Sept. and things might have changed by then anyway. And if not, well it's nobody's business but yours.

Lifeinagoldfishbowl · 06/03/2010 14:28

Another vote for gettng rid of the pushchair.

If you are going to walk a long distance then maybe you could walk half and bus the rest but you are doing the dis-service to your child to let him think it's ok to still sit in a pushchair at his age especially on what is a quick and simple daily walk.

Original poster

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 14:29

Thanks,

we've never had any negative comments about him being in a buggy, maybe because he does look younger,

really like the idea of a 3 wheel scooter, especially for spring/summer,

will look into that, thankyou!

OP posts:

Original poster

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 14:31

its not a quick walk lifeina... its a 4 hour walk each day!

we leave after play group and finish the walk after getting DS1 from school at 3:30 then get home by 4.

It tires me out.

There are no busses that run from our house to were we walk and we wouldn't want to pay the ££ bus fayres if there were!

OP posts:

Lifeinagoldfishbowl · 06/03/2010 14:40

you said the pre-school was a 5 minute walk

merrymonsters · 06/03/2010 14:51

Has he got a scooter? Kids are able to go much further on them because they're having fun.

Original poster

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 14:55

Yes the preschool is a 5 min walk but we always go on from there for a 4 hour walk.

I'm def going to look into a scooter

OP posts:

NoahAndTheWhale · 06/03/2010 14:57

Scooters are great

rookiemater · 06/03/2010 15:04

Another vote for the scooter. DS is almost 4 and runs round the house like a mad thing all the time but moans horribly if required to walk anywhere. However he really enjoys going on the scooter although you do end up having to carry it sometimes.

I don't understand the 4 hour walk thing. Ican't imagine many 4 year olds that would enjoy a 4 hour walk or indeed why you would choose to do one with them, 2 hours around the Botanic Gardens is the limit of our endurance.

Original poster

Disenchanted3 · 06/03/2010 15:18

rookie, we don't drive so we have to walk to get shopping during the day, walk to another far away area to get pet supplies, walk to the harmacy to collect prescriptions etc...

All this has to be done between collecting DS2 from play school and picking up DS1, other wise we would also have a moaning 5 year old.

They are not pleasure walks, they are essential.

OP posts:

rookiemater · 06/03/2010 16:04

Ah understand now, apologies. If you have to do that much walking then I don't think using a buggy is the end of the world to be honest and we aren't at September yet.

Karoleann · 06/03/2010 22:50

my 3.7 year old was in the back of the buggy til 3 weeks ago (he's huge in size 5-6yr clothes) and basically he can't fit any more. He does like scooting, but like most 3 year olds has zero spacial awareness and either scoots into people or scoots close to the road so that I'm terrified that he'll get run over.
Anyway now that he Really can't fit into the buggy at all he does walk.
So advice would be to borrow a really small uncomfortable buggy, or just do a star chart and each time he walks he gets star and then gets a magazine/muffin/new pot of play dough every 7 stars or so x

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