Great baby shoe debate rages on...

emmyloustu

My mom & I took Eliza to a speciality shoe store today to get her shoes and have her measured. I wanted exact info because she has an abnormal toe on each foot and wanted to make sure we are getting the right fit. I am glad we did b/c her feet are bigger than I was buying and double wide.

Anyway, the woman was older (60's maybe) and has been working at this place for like 35 yrs and she is a firm believer that mobile babies need sturdy, hard soled shoes and should wear them a large part of the day. She feels soft soled shoes like Robeez (which they sell) are way over used for infants and mis-used for older babies. She said she has never seen so many adolescents in orthotic shoes and she attributes it to the barefoot push in the last decade doing damage to muscles. My mom was thrilled that this lady confirmed her beliefs.

I have no idea what the right answer is, but we are going to the orthopedic peds on march 7th and i am curious his advice.  So the debate continues...

jenber77

Hmm. My mom also has those same beliefs, but there must have been some reason for modifying past thinking on the matter, right?

GypsyEsq

Would be really interested in what the orthopod says.  My Mom is a bit of anomoly for her generation and thinks barefoot is best so I'm glad I don't have to fight her on it.  But second to that only good quality well fitting shoes work so she's all about buying spendy shoes for her only granddaughter -- whew, lucked out there.

Temp848906437505510

I am totally struggling with the shoe decision, too.  There is so much conflicting information out there!  I am still leaning towards the hard, supportive Stride Rite shoes (only when she is outside, I do believe barefoot or socks are best inside) but, Alana has her 15 month appointment on 3/9 and I'm going to ask her peds what they recommend.

CHI-06

yeah my mom feels the same way.  Honestly the barefoot thing just makes sense.  I mean that is how humans learned to walk... they didn't used to put hard soled shoes on caveman babies ~

Anyways my daughter definitely has less balance and struggles more when I put hard soled shoes on her.  She does great in socks and her Robeez

I would expect that kind of response from an older woman though since that is how they were taught.  Just like how my inlaws still think its wrong that we sleep our babies on their backs...

piccolina09

ohh...make sure to update after your visit on the 7th, I'm curious to hear!

JillRock96

Interesting.  CeCe's physical therapist was just here today (she's in her 50s, I'd say) and was telling us how good it is to let them be barefoot as much as possible in the house when they are learning to walk. 

AvaLikeLava

There's a little guy in S2's daycare who's learning to walk right now. His mom has him in thick soled shoes. Poor kid cries when they're on and just goes down on his knees to crawl. When they're off, he walks.

I can't say what's "better" for him, since I don't have the degree, but watching him just breaks my heart.

With that said, G walked better with soft-soled shoes than barefoot, so he needed "something". I am curious too what your orthopedist says.

epphd

For what it's worth, Sam does great barefoot, and slipped and slid all over the place in Robeez while inside.  Although he was an excellent walker indoors, in the Robeez he would literally not move while standing outside.  On the grass, on the cement, on the sand... in the Robeez he would stand still and eventually cry for me to pick him up.  I'm not sure if it is just a coincidence, but when we got him some sturdy Stride-Rite shoes, he took off outside.  He runs (literally - he's so fast!) on the asphalt, grass, gravel... anything. At home he still wears traction socks or goes barefoot, but outside he's in solid shoes.  It just seems to work better for him.

sliz

What about babies and toddlers that go completely barefoot in other countries? My mom grew up in India and I don't think she even had flip flops until she was a pre-teen

emmyloustu

I think it is really interesting and probably like many other things, what works best for one kiddo, doesn't work for another. Eliza has been barefoot/socks since birth and she has been stuck at taking just 2 steps since November. Could be totally unrelated to her footwear and all about her toe issues and even possibly linked to her tethered cord, but I am interested to see if hard soled shoes make a difference.

My mom got her some higher top Jumping Jacks shoes based on the stores rec for her foot. She is a double wide! I had no clue! She was so funny when they put them on, it was like they cemented her to the floor! I have no intention of putting them on her all day, everyday, but we'll try it for a couple hours.

browneyedgrl4282

Preston has seen an Ortho since he was 3 months old and PT/OT since than as well along with the my other two kids since last year.

The Ortho, Ped, and PT all say the children do not need shoes that they should be learning to walk barefeet and only should wear shoes when they are leaving the house to keep their feet protected from walking on things they could get hurt on or to keep them warm. THey said that the shoes should flexible but not really hard or really soft.

emmyloustu

browneyedgrl4282:

Preston has seen an Ortho since he was 3 months old and PT/OT since than as well along with the my other two kids since last year.

The Ortho, Ped, and PT all say the children do not need shoes that they should be learning to walk barefeet and only should wear shoes when they are leaving the house to keep their feet protected from walking on things they could get hurt on or to keep them warm. THey said that the shoes should flexible but not really hard or really soft.

Interesting! Thanks! These are flexible and structured, but not "hard.". 

epphd

To an extent, I do think some of this is "do what works for your kid." We have friends whose 14 month old was stuck like E, and their DCP suggested hard soled shoes.  For her, it made all the difference and she took off.  I can totally see how it would be a total fail for other kids though.  Just try some stuff out and see how it goes!

dusk42

epphd:

To an extent, I do think some of this is "do what works for your kid." We have friends whose 14 month old was stuck like E, and their DCP suggested hard soled shoes.  For her, it made all the difference and she took off.  I can totally see how it would be a total fail for other kids though.  Just try some stuff out and see how it goes!

And I think that it is different for them to wear one kind outside and be barefoot/in socks inside.  Whatever makes them comfortable walking outside is better than having them cry and not want to walk, and then their feet get a rest inside.  

As for the shoe lady, she's putting together what she has learned/done for years with a probably unrelated phenomenon (more adolescents in orthotics could be due to a lot of things, like better diagnosis of the problems, more financially stable parents or insurance that covers it, or less physical activity as children - those are just my own ideas with no basis in research).  I don't have a great comparison, but you could think of it as someone saying that more kids are diabetic because of the anti-juice stance of pedis now and that we drank juice and aren't diabetic.  You can't really connect two things like that without a large sample size and a lot of statistics.

Avi just started walking, but I think I would start with the recs of the pedis/orthos/PTs and then modify to fit her needs.