first shoes for a toddler?

Question

My son just turned one years on feb 3rd and he is cruising everywhere and at times, will let go and walk a few steps so i need a pair of shoes for him. I know barefoot is better but he needs shoes for when we go out as his feet and socks are getting filthy when i let him walk around places in public. What are good first shoes?

is it the white traditonal baby shoes that cover the ankle...kind alike a high top

can i get him a pair of sneickers without the high top ankle support or do i really need it?

Answer 1

since hes already walking get a regular pair of sneakers and he will be fine. the white high top shoes are soft bottom prewalkers he needs hard sole shoes to protect his feet go to payless or walmart and try shoes on him your best bet is to have his foot measured in a shoe store once every three to 6 months they grow fast

Answer 2

There is a reason you don't see skates for toddlers, and this is it: Stiff tightly laced shoes/skates that go over the ankle are not only uncomfortable, bad for development, they can actually cause the leg to break. Ankles bend, bones don't.

Watch your toddler around the house, watch your toddler fall. Sometimes he goes right over his ankles, and it slows him down a bit. If he can't move his ankle he is going to fall hard and, god forbid, his foot is stuck under something.

Assuming that it isn't cold and there aren't any dangerous things on the ground like a lot of broken glass or sharp gravel. Then the safest shoe and the best for development is a soft soles, soft sided shoe. Robeez are great though rediculously expensive. The cloth baby booties with the grips on the bottom are great (it's what I use). Any thing that is soft and has grip to the bottom is perfect.

Ask your doctor most doctors recommend against hard shoes and say not to use shoes with ankle support until they have at least mastered heel to toe walking (not frankenstein toddler walking)

I had to get hard soled boots for my son because it is freezing cold and the only boots that were actually warm have hard soles, but at least soft sides. My son tried walking in them twice. He won't do it. So if he is in the stroller outside (which he usually is because he won't walk in his snowsuit and layer after layer of clothing either) he wears the boots. As soon as we go inside at a store or whatever, he is back in the cloth baby booties.(Which are really hard to find in his size. On the bright size if you do buy robeez, like I will have to do when these last cloth shoes stop fitting hopefully their feet will have stopped growing quite as fast. Also you can get robeez second hand sometimes, with almost no wear)

Answer 3

The best shoes I found for my son were from Robeez. They're very soft leather with soft leather bottoms, and so are similar for the baby to going barefoot. They also have elastic around the baby's heel, so the baby can't pull them off like they do with most shoes. Pediatricians love these - my son's doctor recommended them. The downside of Robeez is that they are not suitable for wearing outside, but at age one, you're probably carrying him or pushing him in a stroller more than he's walking when you're outside, anyway.

At the point that your son is walking outside a lot, I'd take him to Stride Rite. Their employees are trained in fitting shoes properly, and the shoes come in different "stages" depending on how well the child is walking.

Answer 4

Soft moccasins! They'll give him protection from the cold, and -if you care about such things- stares of the public, while still allowing his feet as much movement as possible. The 'support' from high tops is not near as good as shoe companies would like you to believe, it may even work against him. Allow his little feet to get strong, it's much better than using 'supportive' footwear all the time!

A few sources:
Lynn Staheli, MD
Quoted in The New York Times on Aug 14, 1991

Children with the healthiest and most supple feet are those who habitually go barefoot, according to Dr. Lynn T. Staheli and a growing number of other pediatric orthopedists. His studies of developing nations show that non-shoe-wearers have better flexibility and mobility, stronger feet, fewer deformities, and less complaints than those who wear shoes regularly. He says that, when a child must wear a shoe, it should be lightweight, flexible, shaped more or less quadrangularly, and above all, should not have the arch supports and stiff sides once deemed necessary to give the foot support. Many pediatric orthopedists strongly oppose "corrective" or "orthopedic" shoes for straightening foot and leg deformities like flat feet, pigeon toes, knock-knees, or bowlegs. Dr. Staheli and others contend that there is no evidence that corrective shoes correct anything, and that most of the supposed deformities correct themselves in almost all cases.

“Athletic footwear: unsafe due to perceptual illusions” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 23(2), 1991, pp. 217-224. “Wearers of expensive running shoes that are promoted as having additional features that protect (e.g., more cushioning, “pronation correction”) are injured significantly more frequently than runners employing inexpensive shoes.”

Dr. Carol Frey, associate clinical professor of orthopaedic surgery in Manhattan Beach, Calif. says:
"We are no different from any other animal. We don't need shoes for proper foot development," explains Frey. Walking is a collaborative effort requiring constant communication between the brain and feet. Nerve endings on the bottom of the feet sense the ground beneath and send signals to the brain that help it determine how and where weight should be distributed with each new step. Shoes alter that feedback to the brain. The thicker the sole, the more muffled the message. "Children are forced to walk with their feet further apart to keep their balance," Frey says.

Udaya Bhaskara Rao and Benjamin Joseph.
"The Influence of Footwear on the Prevalence of Flat Foot"
The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, 74B(4), 1992, pp. 525-527.
Our cross-sectional study suggests that shoe-wearing in early childhood is detrimental to the development of a normal or a high medial longitudinal arch. The susceptibility for flat foot among children who wear shoes is most evident if there is associated ligament laxity. We suggest that children should be encouraged to play unshod and that slippers and sandals are less harmful than closed-toe shoes.
...... This study also mentioned that the slipper and sandal-wearing children tended to play barefoot (since this footwear is more easily removed) and that this was believed to account for the intermediate flatfoot incidence rate.

Answer 5

what ever you do...dont get expensive shoes !!!!! they grow out of them to fast. payless has baby shoes that are good. do not get ankle suporting shoes the child needs to lean to walk without the support (makes ankles stronger)

Answer 6

There are first walking shoes, you can find them at most shoe stores. They are not very cute, they are just all white and have high tops (for ankle support) but they worked very well for my kids.

Answer 7

yea the white shoes that cover the ankle are recommended for their first shoes where they are just starting to walk it cover their ankle so they dont twist it.

Answer 8

GOBBLERS. BECAUSE IT PROTECTS THE CHILDS FOOT AND ANKLES. IF HE FALLS.