Clark's shoes - any cheaper alternative?

[BeeBopBunny]

I just bought my DD's first pair of proper shoes - gorgeous little pink leather shoes from Clark's, for £28. We want her to have good shoes, particularly as DH didn't have good fitting shoes and now has bent toes as evidence! The lady in the shop said we should have DD's feet measured every 6 weeks and may well need to buy new shoes each time... £28 every 6 weeks is a little expensive. DH thinks we are paying over the odds, but I haven't found anywhere else selling decent shoes and measuring little one's feet. Are there any cheaper alternatives that are just as good? Obviously if Clark's are the best then we will pay up!

Factory outlets are often even cheaper for babies. Ds's first shoes were £8 rather than £28.

I got ds's first shoes from shoe shop (they were Start-Rite) and then stocked up on the next couple sizes from Ebay - little-worn shoes for about a fiver including postage, so doesn't matter if he never wears some of them and means if suddenly a pair don't fit there's some spares.

Then I found that ds and my parents like going shoe shopping and let them deal with it! :)

If you have a big Mothercare near you they often have a Clarks within them (only the big, big stores I think), I go and get them measured in the Clarks section then walk over to the Mothercare section of shoes and buy from there, checking the fit myself, its not hard once you've been shown how.

I've found the Mothercare shoes are great, they seem to be comfy (no complaints) and seem to wear well. They are much cheaper too. If you compare these shoes from Clarks £28 and these from Mothercare £12 you can see the price difference.

My grandfather owned and ran a shoe shop for donkeys years and he said that kids didn't need expensive shoes, just well fitting ones. If you take the time to fit a good fit they can be £5 from ShoeZone or £30 from Clarks.

Southwestwhippet> We're going down to my aunties in weston super mare next weekend and usually have a visit to Clarkes village while we're there. (my mother has a bit of a clarks sandels fetish!) My DS will be 1 on the 17th and hes not quite walking yet but i thought i might have a look at the baby shoes while we're there. We usually go on Sunday but is it really really busy in the kids measuring section on that day, would we be better to go on the monday before driving home?

I went last Sunday and it was fine. You might have to wait 5 minutes but I'd be surprised if any longer than that.

Good luck!

To be fair to Clarks, the other thing worth mentioning is that whenever we take our dd there to get the fit checked, they're always v honest if the shoes still fit, and I've never felt under pressure to buy new ones. Dd is 3 now, and has had her current pair of leather t-bars for so long that the batteries have run out in the lights. We have the fit checked once a month ( partly because I can't believe she's still in them! ) and the staff always confirm she can wear them for longer!