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Home › Articles › Your Toddlers › Toddler Steps

Toddler Steps

Properly Fitting Toddlers With Shoes

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

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Test Drive
When buying your child new clothes, you would never purchase new pants after trying on only one leg. Brunick states the same rule should apply to shoes. "Have your child try on both shoes and walk around in them to ensure comfort," says Brunick. "The shoe should fit so that the heel does not slide up and down. Also, since one foot is usually longer than the other, be sure to fit the shoe to the larger foot."

A Rule of Thumb
Walk into any shoe store and you will see parents on their knees beside their children, pushing on toes and squeezing the sides of shoes, trying to determine a good fit.

Brunick feels this is a good effort, but not quite right. "This is one of those passed down methods of fitting shoes," says Brunick. "Try this instead: When fitting your child's foot, determine how much toe room they should have in the shoe by leaving space that is equal to the width of the child's thumb -- not the parent's thumb -- between the child's longest toe and the end of the shoe while they are standing. Keep in mind that the longest toe isn't always the big toe."

"I do the pressing on the toes thing when fitting my son with shoes," says Victoria Walker, a mom from Fort Myers, Fla. "This lets me see how much room he has to grow. I also have him walk in them to see if his foot lifts out of the shoe. I've always done it like this, but as he gets older, he can tell me much better how they feel, too."

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