From mums ahead of me We have not reached this stage. These are notes from other mums and my own checking, with no verdict. How this works.The short version
Trolley or backpack, what the school requires, and the weight rule the mums ahead of me wish they'd known.
What happened
The playschool bag was the warm-up. The mums with kids in Class 1 and 2 talk about the school bag the way people talk about a difficult relative.
[Name] weighed her son's bag one morning out of curiosity and it was nearly a fifth of his body weight, mostly notebooks the school required daily. She now checks the timetable the night before and takes out what isn't needed.
[Name] bought a trolley bag and regretted it: the school had stairs, the wheels rattled on the stone floor and he ended up carrying it by the handle. [Name] bought a trolley bag and loves it, because her school is on one floor with a ramp. Same product, opposite verdicts, and the difference was the building.
[Name] said the thing that actually helped was a bottle that clips to the outside, so the heaviest single object isn't inside the bag against his back.
What I'm checking, when we get there: what the school requires every day versus what's optional, whether the building has stairs, the empty weight, and a bag that stops at his waist rather than hanging below it. I'll weigh it the first week.
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that a loaded backpack should weigh no more than 10 to 20 percent of the child's body weight, should have two wide padded straps worn on both shoulders, and should end at the waist; heavier items go closest to the back.
AAP HealthyChildren, Backpack safety. SourceProduct details are as we used them; the version on sale now may differ. Check the exact model and the manufacturer's instructions.