First hard-soled shoes - thoughts?

[MamaHobgoblin]

DS (11m) is just starting to walk, after a few weeks of experimental shuffling. At the moment, he has a couple of pairs of soft leather shoes (the sort with cute leather motifs on, IYKWIM) which he wears more as an aid to keep socks on and feet warm than to help him balance.

What I'm wondering is - should we just continue like this, in soft soled shoes, until he's got his balance cracked, and then look at proper 'hard' outdoor shoes, or does he need hard soles sooner, in order to balance better, or even to get used to walking in them? My MIL and DH sort of think he should be in hard shoes, I instinctively feel it's best to be barefooted or in soft soles until he's got walking sussed. Of course, he can't really go outside in the soft ones without freezing/getting wet. Am overthinking the whole thing, but I have no idea what the current 'thoughts' are on this!

IME (3 boys!) the soft shoes are fine until you want them to walk outside. Mine went in the garden with their soft shoes in but I moved up to the hard soled (expensive!) when they started walking to the shops or whatever.

At nearly £30 a pop, you want to avoid the proper ones until you absolutely need them. They get through them pretty quickly as well

When we took ds to Clarks for the first time the assistant recommended the softer cruisers (I think they're called) rather than "proper" shoes. He was at the stage your ds is just about - was 14 months and still finding his balance.

If he's not going to be walking outside I'd probably stick with the soft shoes. I don't think there's any advantage in having them in hard soles earlier.

Are the soft ones your talking about those lovely all leather squishy ones? Now he's walking/ shuffling be worth thinking about "first shoes". Clarkes or startrite sell them and although they are still quite soft, they have hard areas on the toe and sole to protect and support the feet whilst allowing them to breathe. Following this they then go on to proper typical hard soles. Take a visit to the stores, they are most helpful in giving advice. I'd certainly say the inch blue type shoes aren't supportive enough now he's mobile. Good luck, there are some great boys shoes about. I have a girl so don't have the chance to buy boys shoes! X

as an aside
i don't know where i stand on this yet...

but i've read that there is an argument for no shoes in the early stages of walking, otherwise the feet don't have a chance to develop the right muscles... so you could keep them off if it's warm enough indoors.

I would go to an independent shop if you can rather than Clarks who just want to sell you some shoes.

I have been back to my local lovely, although extremely old fashioned, shoe shop twice recently because I thought DS3 (just 2) needed new shoes and they told me both times that he didn't need them yet and to come back in a few weeks.

Clarks will want you to buy their Cruisers or whatever but the nice soft leather ones are just as good

Hmmm. Lots to think about! I'm such a novice, I just thought there were soft shoes and hard shoes and didn't know about the ones with hard areas on the sole but still soft...! It makes sense to me that he should learn to walk with bare feet whenever possible, because that's the natural default, surely? But then he's got to live in 'proper' shoes later on.

We'll see if there's a local independent store (actually, come to think of it, there is - it sells 'designer' kidswear and I've shunned it like the plague because in the window they have teeny baby shoes (hard ones, I guess) with price tickets reading £60. Fodder for the tide of shops closing down, I suspect. Well, we've got a Clarks too, and I'm fairly immune to hard sells.

Thanks for advice!

I figured that both DS should stay in soft soled shoes like the leather ones you mentioned, until they needed to go outside. The cruiser ones can take light use outside too. When DS 1 was toddling I visited a few shops and quickly sussed who was trying to sell me shoes for the wrong reasons. My overall impression was that toddlers dont need hard shoes until they can walk properly. Many friends said to me - 'well so and so's daughter bought such and such shoes and were walking within 2 weeks of buying them, it really helped with her balance etc." My reaction - 'what's the rush?! They've got the rest of their lives to walk!'
Interestingly, (although not a total professional opinion), my journalist friend researched and wrote about shoes for a couple of years, admittedly they were more of the 'jimmy choo' kind than start-rite but we were talking about this subject and she said in her experience of talking to shoe experts they recommended that a toddler not be in hard shoes until at least 18 months! Of course it also depends on the toddler, but I think the general feeling is that its a bit of a waste of money until they really start going outside.