My son just turned one last weekend and is a walking fool. He’s walking everywhere, hasn’t crawled in weeks. We never really did any kind of shoes with him because when he was crawling he was either in socks or barefoot, then while he was learning to walk we kept him barefoot as the doctors recommend to help his feet “feel” the floor and get balance which he does very well.
Now that walking is his transport method of choice, we need to get him his first pair of real shoes. Many friends have done the Stride Rite thing, Olly is a store out here that does kids shoes with some special measurement system, etc. What recommendations does everyone have for an early walker and what brands are actually worth the ridiculous $40 they’re priced at?
If he’s still toddling around mostly inside, I have to say try something like robeez or bobux . You can also find some less expensive, really nice knock-offs at e-Bay.
If he’s going to be walking in the great outdoors, then Stride-Rite is probably best…but we never bought them except gently used on e-Bay. They are awfully expensive.
Expensive shoes won’t help him walk better, quicker, or more gracefully, IME. You could put $200 kicks on him and he’d still end up stumbling over his own shadow or gleefully stomping through mud puddles.
Buy some moderately priced tennies **without ** laces (velcro or slip ons are good, the zippers tend to stick or tear) that fit him well and let him have at it. He’ll have grown out of them in another month or two anyway. I’ve usually had pretty good luck finding them at Target or Payless.
I second the inexpensive shoes route, especially as he gets older. In addition to the stores already mentioned, Babies-R-Us usually has more in the baby sizes. When he starts really running around, he’ll go through shoes faster that you’d believe, and the expensive ones don’t wear any better or longer.
The best shoes for new walkers are any shoes that fit properly and are flexible. Expensive shoes may last longer, but what does that matter with a toddler who outgrows shoes in a couple of months or even weeks?
The purpose of shoes is to protect feet from the environment, not to “form the foot” or anything else unless your child has specific problems. Indoors kids really don’t need shoes at all - mine happily go barefoot indoors all year round - but outdoors they need something to protect their feet from the weather, sharp stones, and assorted nasty litter.
Avoid shoes with soles that don’t bend easily, or only bend at the thinnest part of the foot, which will be the arch - feet bend at the ball, just behind the toes. Besides that, pick shoes you like, that fit well, and that suit your budget. Simple as that!
Shortly after Fang started walking, Mrs. Magill and I shod him in some sandals from Stride Rite. Look for some with a flexible sole. After the weather got cooler, we shod him in some Nike sneakers from Babies R Us. Both cost less than $20.
As much as buying Nike irked me[1], the shoes were affordable and held up under constant abuse from the walking fool.
[1] I hate the inescapable swoosh. It’s everywhere.
We usually use Stride Rite. We started them off with lace-ups similar to these. My girls wore these pretty much all last summer. We bought some OP slip-ons for splashing around recently that were pretty bad. We had mixed luck with Walmart slip-ons. The first batch was fine, the second batch didn’t work out because of a spot that rubbed. The stride rites have always been fine, if more expensive. Now they wear SR velcro-fastened sneakers that light up but I know I didn’t pay $44 a pair for them. There’s always something on sale or clearance.
We’ve done Stride Rite for Dweezil and Moon Unit mainly because the staff there are trained to fit shoes on kids. There’s a strong family history of foot troubles so well-fitting shoes are a priority with us.
Our concern with Moon Unit is that she’s apt to wear shoes that fit horribly, because she’s fond of them (with old shoes she doesn’t want to get rid of - I recently found her wearing 2-year-old sandals that I had to swipe and dispose of when she wasn’t looking). We believe she’d be the same with brand-new shoes in the store, if they looked cool. So we go to the one store around here that can actually tell us that the shoes seem to fit correctly. We figure we’re better off paying higher purchase prices and getting something that is genuinely wearable.
Similarly, we have concerns over Dweezil’s accuracy in reporting whether shoes fit comfortably.
We make up for the higher purchase price, by only buying the kids 1-2 pairs of shoes per season. For the most part, the shoes last long enough for us to get away with that.
Chloe’s two, and we put her in Robeez. They’re wonderful! Very comfy, excellent for foot development, and fit well on my wide and thick-footed mutant child. And they’re soooo cute, it can be dangerous because you want to buy all the patterns. People are always complimenting us on them, or asking if the shoes and outfit came together (I just use coordinating color combos).
You can get them at our Nordstrom, and a few at Stride Rite, or do like I did and get some on e-bay for cheap.
Cheap shoes are fine unless you have specific problems. But I would advise you tie the baby’s shoes together…there is a theory that this will make him stay little…longer.
I’m an “expensive shoe” sort of person, but I decided to try Target shoes for the Sprout when he was first starting to walk, because who knew how long he’d be in them. They turned out to be really excellent. I’ve gotten several pairs of “Cherokee” sneakers and hiking shoes for him since, and they’ve all been great. We tried some Target sandals, but they started to fall apart almost immediately. That’s similar to what I’ve found with Target clothes–it can be hit or miss, but the hits happen far more often than the misses, so it’s worth the gamble.
Plus, at Target, they often have some good styles–as in WITHOUT licensed characters or sports motifs all over them.
We’ve also had 2 pairs of Tevas so far, and they were excellent.
I’ll probably continue with the Target sneaks and high-end outdoor sports brands for sandals and such.
We just got socks with treads for indoor use when our kids first started walking. They were even fine for most outdoor-supervised-sidewalk walks until they got good enough at walking that they wanted to head out on their own. At that point, we just got plain, cheap shoes that fit them at a Target-type store. We didn’t have any kind of budget for expensive shoes (kid or adult), and they outgrew shoes every two or three months at that stage, so it really didn’t matter how long the shoe was designed to last.
Our son was a very late walker, and actually had to be given physical therapy to learn to walk because of muscle problems. His therapists actually recommended using shoes as little as possible, so that he would learn to use his feet muscles to balance, instead of relying on the soles of the shoes.
