Walking to nursery

[Beepbeep42]

Hello, I have a 2.5 yo who attends childcare. We are currently using a buggy but he's getting bigger and heavier to push (and I'm newly pregnant).
The walk takes me about 20 mins and when he's walked it's been closer to 40 haha, little legs and so on.

He's still little so this isn't a massive issue but it would be great if he could (eventually) walk there and back. The only problem is a) time. It's a rush as it is and I leave at 07:40 currently, being forced to hurry by a stressed mum wont be fun for anyone and b) he never wants to walk home as he's tired. But the buggy is always in view so could be that.

Anybody got any tips or stories about walking distances when they're little? My current plan is to just keep encouraging and hopefully by the time he's 3 he will be happy to walk home too.

Could he scoot? Or get a buggy board? My dd was almost 3 when ds arrived and she would either scoot or buggy board the 15mins to nursery.

@Blueskysinjune that is an excellent and easy idea, thank you! I'd forgotten all about buggy boards (he does have a balance bike which he'll hopefully be keener on by then)

Like you say, I think they just need to build up the stamina.
The morning nursery run sounds too stressful and he will be tired on the way home so I would probably start at weekends and go from there - just make the walks a bit longer each time. My daughter is just over 3 and will walk the 1km to and from nursery now - I started by making her walk a bit before getting in the pushchair (but as you say, having it there is too tempting).
She would also walk just fine if she was pushing her toy pushchair.

I think 2.5 is quite young to be expecting him to walk somewhere on demand in a hurry. I have a 2.5 year old and I can't imagine having to walk 20 minutes to nursery with him. Much easier to use a pushchair, even pregnant. I would say that closer to 3.5 it would be much easier. Could you get a lighter weight pushchair? Or one of those bike things they ride but you push?

Similar issue here. I can walk it in 15 minutes. My DS (almost 3) could do the walk but it would literally double the time plus it’s near some large main roads so I don’t want to use his balance bike. I plan to just get a buggy board for when baby arrives.

Or put baby in a sling in the beginning

Buggy board! We do a 30 min walk with our 2.5 year old on the buggy board. He comes off to walk for some parts of the journey without narrow pavements/too close to a road. It also puts him at a nice height for chatting about what we can see.

Thanks everyone! Buggy board definitely seems to be the favoured solution :-) I'll have a looky online during the Cyber Monday fiasco.