Children's shoes

[DiamondDoris]

Boring question but... soon to be a lone parent and thinking of ways of cutting down expenditure....
My 7 year old DD has fairly wide feet (h I think), always shopped at Clarks. Would it be unfair to look for more bog-standard shoes, or would that be ruining her feet? My gut feeling is to stay with Clarks but they are fairly expensive.

get her feet measured at clarks, even try some on, but go home, and buy online from here they do clarks, startrite and other brands all at cheaper prices. it's last seasons stock but all brand new and delivery is quick. i've used them for my dc's shoes.

Thank you lucykate, that's great advice!

clarks are a con

just feel her feet, they don't do a degree in kids feet before they get a job

we've had clarks and startrite shoes from that site. it's tricky to get dd's shoes from there as she's got arch supports for flat feet and needs to try on, but i still use them for all of ds's shoes and trainers.

I personally find that many other shoes don't fit my girls' feet very well. I prefer Startrite too for school shoes. I find that many other shoes don't fit their feet very well. However what I would say is that in my experience shoes do seem to be fitted quite small these days, in fact my Mum always says that when we me and my sister were children we always seemed to have shoes fitted that had much more room to start with.

As an example my 3 year old was fitted with some Startrite school shoes late August, the lady in the shop wanted to sell me a 7 1/2F. I said that I didn't think there was enough room in them and she said oh yes there is, and actually told me she would not sell me the 8F. So I went elsewhere and bought the 8F. In January my DD said they were hurting her feet, I went back to the original shop, they measured her feet and they then sold me the 8 1/2F. Obviously her feet had had a growth spurt, so I still had to buy more shoes but, but I believe that I would have been buying much sooner had I not had the 8F in August.

I have in the past taken shoes back after 2 months and said they were too small originally, and had them replaced, this is why I now 'fit' them myself, as parents generally know their children and their feet if you have any common sense about how shoes should fit.

Don't know why I repeated the first sentence!

evolucy, why did that woman not sell you the 8F? I would have asked for the manager, the stupid cow...

I go to clarks and I have asked for a bigger, by half, size before and the girl gave me a speech about how they would be sold without her recommendation or some such nonsense, but she still sold them to me, I can't imagine her not doing so.

I think Clarks tend to fit shoes exactly, where as us Mums know fine well that feet can grow, and grow fast, so want some room for that (especially at £30 a pair!). I do think they are good shoes though and much better for their feet than some of the fashion shoes I've seen

snowcake...I don't think she liked the fact that I was trying to explain to her that I knew my DD2's feet better than her. Both my DDs have much longer big toes than the others which means when they feel the growing room at the end it tends to be in the middle where the toes are much shorter, the big toe has very little room to grow! I think I had already rubbed her up the wrong way and she just couldn't bring herself to agree and allow me to purchase the bigger size. It was right at the end of August and the shop was full, I don't think she liked her 'expertise' being questioned, but at the end of the day I am paying for the shoes not her, they were Startrite school shoes that cost £36! DD2 only wore the 8Fs for 5 months anyway before needing 8 1/2s, she may have worn the 7 1/2s for 2 months?!