Are Shoes For Babies A Good Idea?
My pocketbook is glad that I had a boy. Because if I’d has a girl, I’d be spending a fortune on adorable little outfits and cute dresses and lovely little shirts and hats and hair bows and leggings and sweet little shoes. My son has six pairs of pants and seven shirts and various socks and a pair of rain boots and a pair of sneakers and a couple of sweaters and that’s about it.
It’s hard to resist baby shoes. Baby shoes are precious little things and what mom isn’t planning to keep baby’s first pair of shoes? I have the first pair of shoes my son walked in, in the box that I have his keepsakes in. They are K-mart Spiderman sandles, and as you might guess, I’m not planning to get them bronzed.
Little babies don’t really need one of the things on that list: shoes.
Non-mobile babies don’t need shoes at all, just socks or booties on a cold day. Crawlers need knee protection much more than foot protection – pants with an extra layer in the knee, or babylegs or a similar product are more useful than shoes.
Then babies learning to walk are more often hindered by shoes than helped. If baby insists on practicing outdoors, then shoes are necessary, but at home, barefoot or socked feet are best to allow baby’s feet to learn to support her best.
And even toddlers are best off barefoot – at home, or at a safe location. Shoes, even the best designed, and even the cutest, affect baby’s balance and the growth and development of the foot, all of which happen best and most naturally when baby is barefoot.
But baby needs to walk outdoors, so what shoes are best? Flexible but protective soles in lightweight shoes are the best for baby feet. Pedipeds, See Kai Run, and StrideRite all do a good job of protecting baby feet, and have cute-as-a-button designs too.
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ibronz says...
Hi Brit,
Great article. But I have one question.
Why would you save your baby’s first shoes in a box that’s hidden away? Why NOT have them bronzed and out on display…so each time you see them, you relive the memories of your baby’s first steps?
More and more sentimental parents are having their baby’s first shoes (and sneakers) bronzed again. It’s an American family tradition.
Isn’t it time you continued this tradition…or started a new one of your own?
brit says...
I don’t have the chutzpah to send a pair of $5 spiderman sandals to be bronzed
Bathtime Kids says...
I don’t like putting shoes on my baby but I do absolutely love baby shoes.