tips for ice skating with 3 yr old

[frazzled74]

I have stupidly booked tickets for ice rink in london, ds 16 and dd 6 will be fine as they have been ice skating together before. But i cant skate,have never tried ice skating but could never roller skate as a child and was never great on a bike.How will i manage with ds 3? He will want to join in!will we manage to stumble around the edge together holding on to sides? or will it be a disaster? any advice or tips?

In my experience , you will fix a grin on your face as you attempt to convince 3 year old that it's all great fun, put DS in front of you and begin to stumble around clinging to the edge with one hand and DS3 with the other. You will give up five minutes later and return to dry land after much screaming (from DS) and silent swearing (from you) but at least before anyone has fallen and really hurt themselves....... You could see if there is anyone available to give DS a lession. For DS1 (when he was 5) I arranged a 15 minute class to give him the rudiments - he still hated skating but at least the teacher was competent about getting him away from the edge and around the rink!

lesson not lession!

bicycle helmet to protect his head if he falls over. At 3, they can be somewhat fearless.

Make sure he is in waterproof trousers, so that he doesn't end up soaked. I arranged to do with Polish friend od ds 2 and his mum - I paid and she did the stuff with them - see if they have those penguin support things that they can push around.

thanks, will def invest in waterproofs. He is a bit of a cautious child so i suspect we will only have a short go, and at least we will sort of doing a family activity together, which is pretty much impossible when they 16,6 and 3.does anyone know if you can hire the penguin pushers at somerset house?

Also, are they hiring out penguin zimmer frames?

The seasonal rink down here has these penguins little kids can hold on to. You can then hold on from behind and look like a pro

the penguins are good - make it look easy - which is a scary thing as it doesn't really teach them to skate at all. ds enjoyed using them though. i saw a three year old girl whose (stooopid) parents had decided to simply hold her hand - she had a terrible tantrum on ice at the furtherest point from the exit; screaming and slipping and desperate to hurl herself downwards with her parents desperately trying to prop her up without falling over themselves - it was awful and i really felt for them

Check what is the smallest size of skates for hire. At Hampton Court it was a child's size 9 IIRC.

We went to a special toddlers session the other week and there were sledges! Why don't you phone and ask advice from the rink? They might be able to help.

The lady when we went taught dd to 'march'. I had to hold her hand and the back of her coat to keep her up and then she stomped little paces and was off!! I guess I'm fairly steady on skates though. Can your DS1 help for a while if he's been before?

Hope you have a great time!

let your elder ds take him or have him between you. Unless they have double bladed skates and a push along it will seriosuly hurt your back to supprot him and yourself and he won't last more than 10 minutes. Thick jogging bottoms and waterproof overtrousers or ski salopettes to cuhsionthe fall and wet. Waterproof gloves too.

I'd check whether he can go at all - we went to Canary Wharf and they wouldn't let DD1 go on the ice at all - strictly over 4yo only. There had been nothing on the posters or the website that we could see.

They did have skates that fitted though - they strapped over shoes so weren't size-dependent, and had 4 blades rather than 2 (think roller skates vs rollerblades).

Oh, and the penguins were just there for anyone to grab, not bookable.

Ok, i have worked in ice rinks and have skated far too many hours per week for having a life. In my personal and professional opinion taking a 3 yo onto a rink in a general public session is dangerous for the child and other people. Despite what advice you have been previously given it is most rinks policies NOT to permit ANYONE except ice hockey players in training or matches onto the ice with a helmet! The 4 bladed boots are deemed by health and safety to be more dangerous and are not stocked by most of the uk rinks anymore. Also that last few rinks I have worked at have had a requirement of no smaller then uk child 11 size feet which is roughly about 4-5 years of age. My best advice to you would be to make sure that you had something really nice for your ds and do something really special with him that doesnt involve skating. Sorry to be a party pooper but I wouldnt let him on a rink i was working on for general public skate for safety reasons!

Special toddler sessions are a different matters as it is much safer and if you feel the need to take ds skating would recommend this.

thanks for all your advice, i will play it by ear, just checked the site and it says smallest shoes will fit 3-4 year old.it says a few penguins will be available.So to me it suggests that they dont have an age restriction.Imay phone them though to check.