Good shoes for wide footed toddlers ?

[littleoldme]

My DS is a 3H and needs new shoes. I'm not inspred by Clarkes or Strat Rite as they do limited styles in an H width. Can anyone suggest a good brand ?

My DS has wide feet. I was very unimpressed with Clarkes and switched to Chipmunks. They are really good quality, nice fit for wide feet (although I dont think they came in individual widths, just a standard wide fir iyswim), flexible, cheap, nice range of styles.

I have never seen them in large chains, but all my local shoe shops sell them.
As far as I remember they stopped at size 10.

wide fit not fir

The best thing they can wear are actually those "cruisers" with the rubbery soles, much more flexible than "proper" shoes and far less likely to damage feet. I was told this by my foot doctor at the hospital (podiatrist?). I kept my dc in them until their feet outgrew the sizes offered. Much cheaper too at £15ish per pair.

Quite a few of the european brands come up wide as they aren't width fitted - DD is usually a G and have found Geox and Ricosta usually have plenty of width. Going along the "flexible is good" line, though, I'd go with CarGirl's advice (DD is currently a 6G so too big for most cruisers, but I'm quite tempted to try a pair of these - just a shame about the price...)

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll have a hunt around.

littleoldme is you DS crawling/cruising/walking yes clarks shoes can be a little drab,..but the right footwear for the right stage is very important for the growth of the childs feet,
the clarks store i worked in was in a mothercare world store,..and mothercare did some very good soft soled shoes could be worth a look,.. altho unlikely for a H fitting as F is standard
HTH

Jo - He's walking now. I'm really paranoid about getting the right shoes for him as DH, who also has wide feet, badly injured his foot by wearing shoes that were too narrow.
I may wel stick with cruisers for a while.

I find Ecco is a good brand for my fat-footed DD1

Honestly save yourself £££££££££££££s and use cruisers, next best thing to cruisers are doodle type shoes according to my consultant. The don't need support I think they need flexible shoes and of course ones that aren't too small or big or rub. Bare feet is best as much as possible.

I'll check out Ecco What are doodles?

sort of like fitted plimsoles/canvas shoes in funky colours, clarks sell them as Doodles Startrite do their own version too.

I've checked out the canvas shoes and they are gorgous BUT none of them go up to an H fitting Grrrrr

Perhaps because he is only a size 3? We've certainly got doodles in an H also it's worth going into store as in some styles a G may be wide enough to fit. Perhaps it's back to cruisers for a while.....

All of mine were at least a 4 by the time they thought about walking!

I took DD to get first walking shoes on saturday to clarks. Her feet were so wide and she had such a high instep that we could not get anything in her length (3 1/2) to fit. We spent an hour there trying to find something. They didn't even have anything we could order from the catalogue. We ended up with doodles in a 4 which were the best fit and the assistant said DD would get used to the extra length. The assistant did say things would get a lot easier when she got to a size 4.

i agree with cargirl doodles or cruisers anything with a softer flexible sole!