Hand-me-down shoes?

[ilovespinach]

I'm going to have to buy summer shoes for my 2 ds's soon. I still have ds1's summer sandles from last year which I could hand down to ds2 if he will be the same size (possible). They are in good condition - sole is good and hardly worn, a bit dirty fro playing outside but I could sling them in the washing machine. The only thing is you can see the ridges inside from ds1's feet so I'm not sure if they would be ok...

Just wondered what other folks do.....we hand clothes, toys, books etc down but what about shoes?

a shoe fitter told me that as long as there is a fingers width at the end of the toes, a fingers worth of give in the shoe as you run your fingers across the top of the foot and they don't slip off from the heel when you give them a tug when they are attached to the foot then they are fine. This was shown to me by a clarks assistanT and I have passed ds1's shoes down to ds2 in the pasT as they have plenty of life left in them. HTH
X

thanks

Shoes are one of those things I'm quite conservative of. The advice given to frangipan is what I understood as the basics of how to check whether shoes were too small.

However, the concern I have with 2nd hand shoes was that they can only stretch so far, and once they've adopted the shape of a given foot a shoe is more likely to try and mold a 2nd foot to it than vice versa (if that makes sense). That said, I'd have thought if you're going to do it with anything then sandals are probably the safest. And given how rigid the leather on some toddler shoes seems to be maybe we're overly cautious about the whole issue anyway (or should avoid stiffer shoes if we're worried).

if they have changed to the shape of the foot of the previous wearer then i don't pass them down but otherwise i do

I hand down and accept hand-me-downs and buy in charity shops everything except shoes. But dreadful feet run (pun intended) in my family, so I am doing everything I can to stop my children getting the hideous corns and bunions that afflict their grandparents.

I tend to buy new shoes but keep the old shoes (from older DC) as reserves. So if DS2 treks thru a muddy field and I forget to wash his school shoes, I have DS1's old shoes as spares. Mind, DS2 is currently wearing all old pairs from DS1/DD. . He's happy. He mostly goes barefoot, anyway.