Stroller for older child

Cathy Kearns wrote:
"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
. ..
And while the scooters do fold up, they're not all *that*
lightweight. I wouldn't be particularly keen on hauling
it home afterwards (though one might be able to leave it at school).

In all the cases I've seen, the mom rides it home :-)

Now, that would be a workable alternative ;-)

Best wishes,
Ericka

Cathy Kearns wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
I used to post here a little a few years back, then went into lurk mode
for awhile.

Anyhow: my daughter is now 4 and about 35 pounds. I don't have a car,
and (unlike my spouse) I'm not stable enough on a bicycle to ride in
bad city traffic with my daughter on a bike. When I take my daughter to
preschool or pick her up, I have to walk more than a mile and cross a
number of notoriously dangerous intersections.

Some questions:

1. I know a lot of people here hate putting older kids in strollers.
Would you apply the "no strollers" rule to this sort of situation? If
so, what would you do? (For practical reasons, buying a car, moving and
changing schools aren't options at the moment.)

Our children, by age 4, could walk quite a ways. If this is going to be a
long term thing, for instance if when she is in kindergarten she will still
be walking a long distance to school, you might want to start getting her
used to walking.

I generally used a stroller when I picked up my 3 YOs from preschool
for the reasons OP describes -- 1.5 miles through some busy
intersections in the next suburb. But by the time my youngest was 4 and
in the junior kindergarten program, I usually walked up to school so he
and I could walk the mile home from school together rather than have
him wait on the school bus (we often beat the bus home, too).

If I hadn't had to get his older sibs on their earlier-leaving buses
in the morning, I'd have walked him to school. Although there was some
whining now and again about why I couldn't bring the car like all the
other moms who picked up their kids, he tended to look at it as an
adventure -- we'd literally stop and admire flowers or cool cars or
construction projects along the way.

I like to think it played a part in shaping him into the distance
runner he is now, 7 years later.


Lori G.
Milwaukee, WI

Ericka Kammerer wrote:


While some 4yos can manage those scooters, not all
can, so it might be a couple of years before it would work,
by which time walking might be just fine (and she presumably
wouldn't be at the preschool anymore). Also, I'd be a bit
worried about a scooter-enabled child at dangerous intersections.
And while the scooters do fold up, they're not all *that*
lightweight. I wouldn't be particularly keen on hauling
it home afterwards (though one might be able to leave it at school).

Best wishes,
Ericka

My dd was closer to 5 before she could reasonably manage a 2 wheel
scooter, but after about a week or so she was zipping around the
neighborhood and we ended up 'scootering to school', as she liked to
call it, almost daily with my younger dd in a jogging stroller. Kept us
all in good shape, it was fun.

c.