Wide-width Shoes for a Toddler

My son had wide feet (and still does) but for the first year he never wore shoes. After there we had the best luck with payless. Stride rite was not in my budget.

My daughter has wide feet as well, although Stride Rite often told me she was borderline. Most of the time I go with wides anyway for comfort, and because my husband and I both have wide feet, she is probably destined for it. I found the best prices on Stride Rites online at shoebuy.com. They send you coupons for future purchases if you sign up for their e-mails, and that helps, too. Zappos has a decent selection, but I think most of their kids shoes are pretty expensive. If you can get away with regular widths and whole sizes, JCPenney carries Stride Rite for much, much cheaper than the Stride Rite stores, but only whole sizes, regular widths. They occasionally have them on clearance as well- I've found great shoes for about $8! There are also Stride Rite Outlet Stores out there- run a search to see if there are any in your area. Sketchers seem to work well for my daughter also. You may want to try to measure his feet yourself at a different store and see what you think his actual size is. I hate spending a ton on shoes that my daughter is going to outgrow quickly, but at the same time I don't want her to have foot problems, either. My husband had to wear cheap/crappy shoes growing up, and he has horrible foot problems now. I imagine the shoes contributed. It will be easier to know what kind of shoes to get as the children are older and can give feedback about what hurts and what feels comfortable. Good luck!

Hiya K.!

I too have wide-footed wee ones - two of them in fact! In addition to Stride Rite (expensive and boring, I agree) I also discovered New Balance (like the very first person posting said!).

But ... I also wanted you to know about (if you don't already) the wonderful shoes that fit any foot called Robeez - there are also BoBucks - I know for sure the Robeez are on Amazon.com for a great price. They are awesome when it comes to style! Other than that (and barring wintertime) I say barefeet rule (and they are cheap ...)!

Payless has wide shoes for toddlers (at least the one go to)... and they have a good variety at great prices.

HI,
My 2 1/2 yr old daughter also has wide feet. Our favorite brand is SEE KAI RUN. They don't come in "wide widths" per se but run much wider than other brands. You can usually find them at "boutique" baby shops (a little spendy), and online. I buy ours on Ebay. I think you will really like the styles!

Megan

I have found wide width shoes at K-Mart.

My daughter had wide feet and the only store/brand that would even fit her was Stride Rite. She had double wides specially ordered. Yes expsensive but they do hold up.

I would be patient, my daughter lost alot of baby fat and was able to fit in regular shoes any brand eventually but it was quite frustrating to have a small selection for awhile. I too am a shoe freak and love trendy name brand shoes with no other choice we had to use stride rite for awhile. I don't think it's a gimmick because I literally went there as my last resort, NO shoes fit my chubby toddler.

My son has "double wide" feet. The only non special order shoes that I have found fit him well are the Elmo shoes from target. They are not marked wide but they are. I think you need to try a lot of shoes on to find a good fit.
Best of luck!
A.

Most kids that age have wide feet. It's part of being a toddler. I do have to say though, when we switched our kids to stride rite shoes they were happier. Having shoes that fit well is not only important for their comfort, but the development of the bone structure in their feet.

Since then we have found crocs and sketchers. My son (6yo) just picked out some sketchers and he is thrilled.

Just looked on line and saw these:

http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/2975970?refsid=225086_1&r...

I thought that they were cute.

Hi K.-
I feel your pain. I have kids with wide feet as well. My daughter is actually a "triple wide" (AHHHHH!!!!!!). We did have to do the Stride Rite thing, but choose to order instead of pick the ones off the shelf. We actually go to a store that is not in a Mall because we have found the store front ones to have greater selection than the Mall stores. I wish I had not of given the kids shoes away as I would let you look through those. My son had double wide. I know it is true as I saw the measurment myself plus any single wide ones would place red marks across the feet. The good thing is my son has now only become a single wide and we can buy his shoes from WalMart or Payless. My daughter on the other hand, I am still looking..... So if it helps, just know as they get older the foot slenders out.... We too have good luck with New Balance and Sketchers from Kohls.

Hi K.,

My son also had wide-width feet as a child and still does. I would only buy Stride Rite for him as it was very difficult to find shoes to fit. When measuring a child, you should not only look at the width of their feet, but you must also look at his instep. My son also had a high instep so the shoes from Stride Rite worked very well. I don't know of any other place that sells shoes for wide feet. Have you looked at New Balance?

C.

Sketchers are wider width, and are New Balance. The Payless brand are also wide width, and hold up better than the Stride Rite, in my opinion.

I do think Stride Rite is a gimmick to get people to buy thier shoes. They don't hold up well at all for what you pay for them. I bought them for the boys two years ago, and they didn't last a few months. I went back to buying Sketchers for them. my oldest's feet have thinned out a bit, but my youngest has XW feet, and the Sketchers work great for him.

Ecco shoes are wider width too, there is an Ecco store at the outlet mall in Albertville. Of course Crocs are wide too, those are all my boys wear in the summer (and spring.. and fall! LOL!)

I was wondering if stride rite was a scam about that also. But my kiddo does have wide feet, and since she was treated for clubfoot as a baby I will do whatever it takes to make walking more comfortable/successful, including paying outrages prices for her shoes. Heck, the 'shoes' and bar she has to wear at night costs about $900 (thankfully is covered 80% by insurance)!! anyways, try endless.com it has tons of kids shoes and on the left menu you can search by width. and free overnight shipping! good luck!
-Ali

We have 2 year old twins with Extra Wide feet. We have found that Zappos.com and Endless.com are about the best that we can find. The DC brand tennis shoes fit really well and the boys really like them. We had started with Stride Rite because that was all that we could find in a store, but very quickly switched to online. Both Zappos & Endless usually offer free shipping (through promotionalcodes.com) and get the shoes to you pretty quickly.

I can see that this post is really old, but I accidentally stumbled upon it, so just in case anyone else does, I thought I'd add in my daughter's favorites. She's 4, was born with and still struggles with bilateral clubfoot. The deformity makes her feet wide and it took us years to find shoes that aren't specifically for orthopedic impairment to fit well. What we've found are DC shoes and Vans shoes. Because they're skate shoes, a lot of them have really funky designs--plaid, polka dot, and a lot of canvas shoes, but they also have plenty of plain black or cute two-tone.