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My 11 month old daughter started walking about 2 months ago, and is now a very strong walker for her age. I've taken to letting her walk part of the way whenever we're going somewhere (pushing the stroller with one hand, and holding her hand with the other). Whenever she gets tired (she never lasts more than 500-600 meters) I put her in the stroller and let her ride the rest of the way. I am now starting to wonder when I'll be able to completely leave the stroller behind and let my daughter just walk everywhere with me, which leads me to my question.

At what age is the average child ready for longer (about 5 km, possibly broken up into two parts with a small rest in between) walks?

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Anecdotally, we had entirely variable results with our 3. Our first probably got the worst of it, as once his sister turned up (when he was 2) he didn't really get any travel in the buggy, aside from a brief stint with a double offroad buggy... We used to take it everywhere with us until she was around 3 - as we like taking the kids for long walks, hikes etc. Then our youngest did still use a buggy occasionally at age 4 - by then we had a shoulder strap type buggy so we would have it when she became exhausted (often abot 5 miles up a track in the middle of nowhere :-)

For something like a 5km walk - all of ours were happy doing that by age 3. I think they were about 5 before they were comfortable with mountains/munros and longer walks, but by then I had taught them to climb and belay so they have always been used to this sort of thing.

Your mileage may vary - best bet is to keep the stroller until she doesn't need it for a whole walk (or almost a whole walk - the last half mile when they are tired, but you don't have a stroller can be a good experience...)

As an aside, I think we had 6 different buggies in total - offroad, travelling, shopping, long distance, offroad double and a holiday one we used to take to the beach in Portugal. You'll have a few, just go with what your child needs.

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