The AP is reporting that the “No shoes, no shirt, no service” signs commonly found in fast food and other restaurants may have been enforced a little too strictly at a St. Louis Burger King.

The article says that Jennifer Frederich, along with her mother and her infant daughter stopped at Burger King on Sunday. The baby was not wearing shoes, her mom figured that her tiny baby feet were exempt from the rule.

But workers asked the family to leave because the shoeless baby was violating a health code. In fact, there is no such policy in that county and the restaurant eventually apologized to the family.

As a mom of two, I know that baby shoelessness is a common occurrence – at least with my kids. Even my toddler daughter, who is known to kick off her shoes the minute she is strapped into her car seat, sometimes is brought into restaurants or stores sans shoes. Be it because she is asleep or because we just don’t feel like fighting her about it – but never sets bare feet down on the floor. Perhaps if the young baby was walking on the floor it might have been grounds for a health code violation, but to require babies to wear shoes is a bit extreme. Heck, our seven month old son doesn’t even own shoes!

What do you think?

Did they take it too far at this restaurant, or should babies be required to have on footwear?

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.

High heels for a baby? Yes, really it is true.

Today I discovered a company called Heelarious, which manufactures tiny shoes with heels. The shoes have been created in the United States by two childhood friends, Britta Bacon and Hayden Porter, and are ’specifically designed for babies.’ I was wondering what that really means. How exactly does one design a pair of high heels specifically for a baby?

A check on the company’s website reveals that they have 6 designs in various styles and colors including pink, black, and leopard print. The shoes are intended for babies up to 6 months of age and are ‘extremely funny, completely soft, fully functional high heel crib shoes for babies.’ Each pair of shoes costs $35 and can be purchased at a limited amount of retailers in the United States, Canada and Switzerland. They can also be purchased online.

The high heeled shoes are not intended for walking as the ‘heel will collapse with weight’ and are intended to be worn in the crib only. The website claims that the shoes were actually created as a joke product one day when one of the designers thought, while on the way to a party, about what fun it would be to bring her daughter to the event in high heels.

Perhaps I am old, or prudish. I don’t really see anything funny about high heels on a baby. I certainly don’t see anything even remotely amusing about buying a pair of $35 shoes for my child that aren’t intended to actually even be used as shoes. That’s just me though.

What do you think? Would you buy high heels for your infant? Do you think that $35 for a pair of shoes which aren’t actually usable is a good deal? Would you buy a pair for your infant daughter?

Don’t you just love to look at baby shoes? I admit I do. They are so cute aren’t they? It makes you wonder, do babies really need shoes, or are they just a nice outfit accessory?

I began to re-think the whole infant shoe concept after noticing that my children were always losing shoes. Don’t you just hate it when you are leaving the “super store” and you notice that your child now has one less shoe than she did when you began the trip several hours earlier? In my 14 years of parenting, I have never, ever found a shoe my infant lost in a store. I suppose once they drop on the floor, infant shoes are automatically swallowed up by a black hole and are transported to some magic shoe kingdom where they live happily ever after. At least that’s how I explain the phenomena to my children.

Personally, I feel that babies really don’t need shoes until they start walking. Even then, I tend to let my children go around in bare feet if it’s warm enough(great for tactile stimulation) or I’ll have them wear socks if it’s cold. If we need to go out, I’ll put on several layers of socks or booties in cold weather. I’ve found that it’s much easier and cheaper to just replace a pair of socks or booties when one gets lost.

Once the children begin to walk, I like to buy baby moccasins for them. I’ve seen them in the infant department of several discount stores as well as the specialty baby stores. I like these kinds of shoes because they are soft, easy to slip on your child’s foot, and relatively inexpensive.

I know parents who do prefer the traditional high topped white infant shoes(you remember these don’t you?) which is fine as well. I’ve found though that if you have children with chubby or wide feet, it can be difficult to find a traditional shoe that fits comfortably without chafing or irritating the baby’s sensitive skin.

Sneakers are great as they are easy to get on and to fit over chubby feet, but some infants balk at having a heavy shoe on their foot. My son is one of these kinds of kids.

There are lots of choices and options out there for covering your child’s feet. Choose the one that best fits your needs and budget.