what age ice skating?

[Liz79]

I see from a friends facebook that her little girl went ice skating for the first time today, she's 2y 6m. Mine is 2y 2m, I wouldn't have thought of taking her yet but now I am wondering about taking her next weekend. What do people think? When did you 1st take your dcs?

you get special skates for litle ones that have two bars across the bottom to help them balance

i took dc3 this winter (he's 3.6) and there was no way he could have done it but he had a heavy plastic penguin to push round the ice and he loved it!

dd is 8 and she's finally able to go well on her own but thats only after a summer of going on her inline skates!

i would take her and see if there is something to help her round! she might like it!

It is back breaking to take a toddler. ime I wouldn't bother before 4 as the hassle of getting everyone ready takes longer than their enthusiasm for being on the ice ! Soem rinks do double balde starp on skates and push alongs but not all.

I took DD at 3y and it is hard work. They don;t do the double bladed skates here, so she has single blades. I am not very good at skating as it i so it was back breaking and hard. But she did start to get the hang of it.

My friend is an excellent skater - was something like 3rd in England when she was in her late teens. She has only recently signed her DD up for lessons at 8y, and only took her a handful of times beforehand - despite her being very capable of holding her, etc.

I'm an ice skating freak (although haven't skated properly for years). I don't intend to take DD for years yet (she's 2.1). I took my niece for the first time last year, she was 6 and still just a tiny bit too young. You can get runners for tots but it's not so much the staying upright as the keeping them from being run over etc. Too much hassle for not much fun.

I took DD (8) with a couple of friends for a b'day party and it was really hard work. Until after about an hour, when they finally got their balance. But it's really knackering on your shins/back. The boots we hired were really old (same ones as when I was 10 and they haven't replaced them in 22 yrs) so my feet felt like they had cramp all the way around!
I wouldn't worry too much about taking your DD so young but if that's what you want to do, then just do it.
Our rink was sooooo busy yesterday, there were teenage lads doing 'tricks' al over the place and not going around in the same direction as everyone else, which made it tricky.

My 5yo has been a couple of times lately, mostly because her 9 and 8 year old sisters like it.

My tip is get them roller skating, all of mine roller skate a lot and this means when they do go ice skating they find it quite easy. And you can roller skate from 4 or 5.

It does depend so much on the child - I'm stunned when I take DD at the confidence of some small children. I suppose they don't have far to fall!

Check if your rink has age limits - ours doesn't, it just goes by whether your child is big enough for the skates.

I took my five year old this winter and she was fine with it and skating off on her own on the adult style skates. The 3yo was left at home. Not only did I think it unlikely that the would do skates small enough for her tiny feet, but I just don't think she is strong enough. I would have had to have held onto her the entire time, and where the fun for either of us in that. Her flipper footed, long and strong sister would probably have been fine age at her age, though.

Only you know your child, and whether they are likely to get anything out of it.Don't do it just because your friend has.

thanks for all your replies, I've decided to wait a few years until she's bigger and stronger with more balance but still no fear and not so far to fall!