What comes after a balance bike

[Mumplum1]

Hello, our 3.5 year old has been using his balance bike for almost a year now and we are wondering what the next stage is that he should get, I feel he is a bit young for a "proper" big boy bike so then we thought maybe a bike with stabilisers but then surely that takes away the good work of learning to balance. Is there another in between bike?

Thank you in advance from a confused mum 😂

Our ds is tall for his age and he is very confident on his balance bike now but getting a bit big for it, he has never had a pedal bike so we assumed we needed an in between stabiliser bike to teach him to pedal.

We will get on google this evening to look up "proper bikes" ... along with knee pads and elbow pads 😆

Thank you all so much for your replies, that was very helpful and will give me the confidence to try him on a bigger bike at this age, has probably saved us money too on an unnecessary in between bike! 🙂

Dd had a puky balance bike for her 2nd birthday. Two years later she had outgrown it and we bought her a regular pedal bike. No stabilisers. She got on it and pedalled away: my older dc who hadn’t had balance bikes used stabilisers for months. If your dc was able to use a balance bike they will be able to skip stabilisers altogether.

DD1 is 4.5yo and still uses balance bike. They go on until about 5. You need a higher seat, that's all. If you can take pedals off of a bike, I suppose it becomes a balance bike.

Half brother was great in his balance bike! When they can easily take their feet off the floor and control the bike, they're super ready for a normal bike.

I bought an aluminium tube to extend the seat (strider bike)

Definitely look at an Islabike. You can luck them up second hand in Facebook to save some money! DS went from a chicco red bullet balance bike to an Islabike Cnoc 16 with pedals removed for a month to get him used to the feel and then he was off! He's just had the next size up for Christmas!

We went straight from balance bike to two wheeler. Took DS about 10 mins max to get it.

I boycotted islabike. Many years ago, I put two into my basket (for my 2 sons) and then sent them a message about sizing. While waiting on the reply, they increased the price by over 30%. Refused to honour the price or offer a discount or anything.
Obviously they are perfectly entitled to run their business in any way they see fit and I'm equally entitled to take my business elsewhere. I went to a bike hire place and picked up lovely bikes there instead.

On a bike, two things to learn, pedalling and balancing.

One way is learn to pedal first, using stabilisers, then take them off and learn to balance.

The other way is to learn to balance first and then add the pedals.

So if your child is actually balancing then they’re ready for a bike.

We found ridgeback was a good cheaper option than the frog and isla, still quite light.

No balance bikes when mine were small so they had trikes then stabilisers. Dd2 learned to ride without stabilisers in an hour or so when we took them off whereas dd1 was much older and really struggled. It varies so much from child to child

Counter productive to use stabilisers, you have to use your weight in a totally different way to a balance bike and real bike.

We had a Puky bike as the pedals come off.

My DC's had balance bikes. They all moved on to a normal bike at age 3. They pretty much got on the bike and rode off into the distance.

Ours went straight to a proper bike after balance bike with ease at that age. It was a small frame lightweight bike. We did have a second hand more clunky bike with stabilisers to get them used to the pedals which was just ridden around the patio though but the balance bike was preferred.