Originally Posted by
Fargo Wolf
Take the pedals off the hand-me down bike and let her push herself around on that. In this way, she can learn to balance on the bike w/o assistance, yet, at the same time, still have the ability to put both feet down at the same time if required. it also familiarizes her with said bike's handling. When she is really scooting around with the pedals off and it's more than obvious that she's mastered balancing, put the pedals back on. It shouldn't take too long for her to get the hang of pedaling.
+1 If she can already scoot around (and necessarily steer) on her balance bike, then doing the same on the slightly larger hand-me down bike should be a very quick transition. And it'll get her used to steering on that bike and how it feels without anyone holding onto either the seat or handlebars. At that point I've found it to be an easy step to put the pedals back on (still with a seat that's too low for efficiency) and let the child learn the pedaling motion. Raising the seat to a more reasonable height can then be done gradually as the child gains confidence.