From now until Christmas, I am featuring our all time favorite toys! I always love getting recommendations to get the Christmas gift idea lists to the grandparents in plenty of time! That’s why I am starting early this year with some individual toy features. I will update our gift recommendation posts {tot, preschool, boys, moms, Jesus} for 2013 and publish those in November, but wanted to get started with these features of our favorites now. I will feature 10 different gift ideas between now and Dec 21, every Saturday. Recently I featured Straws & Connectors, Indoor Energy Burners, and Foam Blocks!

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We were given an orange Strider Bike to review when Krash was 3 years old. He wore this thing out and was riding a pedal bike confidently by age 4 1/2. This balance bike made us believers in the no-pedal concept for sure.

We ended up giving away our orange Strider bike when Ladybug was showing no interest since she saw it as “her brother’s bike. We gave it to our good friend and her little boy began flying on it at about age 2 and is still going strong on it at age 3 1/2!

Ladybug had a slow start on the whole physical balance thing with her medical concerns we dealt with around age 2. She was a very late walker and was much slower to show interest in things like this. She showed zero interest in a bike at all until last Christmas when she mentioned wanting a pink bike. We ended up buying a second Strider bike, this time in pink for her!

It wasn’t until this past August that she began to really ride it, she is currently 4 1/2. She LOVES it now!

Her helmet is this one, and yes it is awesome!

Which Bike?

I have only ever had a Strider Bike for my kids but there are tons of balance bikes out there now. We looked at many others when choosing a bike for Ladybug and ended up coming right back to Strider simply for the success we had with our first one. It is very light weight and all others we looked at were heavier. We are beyond pleased with both Striders we have had! We ordered our pink Strider Bike from Amazon.

What Ages?

As you can see the age range varies for these bikes, depending on the child. I know 2 boys {my son and my friend’s son we gave the orange one to} who were totally ready and flying on the balance bike early. Some even earlier than they were! Then for a slower to develop child the bike is perfect at age 4 1/2. The official age recommendation from Strider is 18 months-5 years. I think we will use ours beyond 5 years with Ladybug.

The bike is durable and able to be handed down as we have. We will be able to pass on Ladybug’s bike too. It is in great shape.