Stride Rite shoes

I have terribly high insteps.  Little A has the same problem.  Both our feet look like this, but much less knobby and Microsoft Paint-y:

As you can tell from this fantastic painting job, we're also both very narrow-footed, which is a pain because you have to get bigger shoes to accommodate the height, which means that your foot slides around back and forth.  The old adage is that a high instep is a sign of aristocracy (higher the instep, more elite the bloodline) - all it means these days is that it's a giant pain in the crack to buy shoes.  

We didn't buy A shoes until she was walking - from everything I read (and I read a LOT), it said that you should wait to put them into shoes until after they were used to the feel of the floor.  Also, it was cheaper.  Win-win.  Her first pair of shoes were some "Tommy Tickle" ones I got off of Zulily - they were soft-soled so that she could still feel the floor, but sort of eased her into shoes (which she was fighting by throwing themwhenever we tried to put them on her).  They worked well, and accommodated her high instep/tall foot well.  It was also a gentle way to make the transition.

We had a pair of little Keds next to make the transition to hard soles, but she refused to wear them - so we next bought some squeaky shoes.  Not squeaky as in "oh, they just need to be broken in" - no, these shoes had some device in the toes that squeaked like a dog toy every time she took a step.  It was cute for, oh, say, the first hour.  Then I wanted to throw them away - as did our amazing nanny.  Unfortunately, A loved them, and was bummed when we did transition her to the Keds.  The Keds worked okay, but her little foot was fairly crammed into there pretty tight, and I hated seeing the little marks they left on the top of her foot.

I looked at Target, Payless, Penney's.  Nothing really has much in the way of options for infant/toddler shoes, so you're sort of left looking online.  I looked on Amazon, and the reviews showed mostly shoes that weren't going to be tall enough.  Seriously, where do people buy toddler shoes, and where did they do it before the internet?

So, I made the next step up.  Stride Rite.  I was a little nervous about this because their shoes are a bit pricey when you consider that toddlers grow shoe sizes every few months, but we really had very few other options.  

We went with the Stride Rite brand of tennis shoe.  This isn't the exact one, as it was an older style, but it's pretty similar (LINK), ran about $35:

It's probably hard to tell when there is no point-of-comparison, but this is actually pretty tall.  I don't know that it had a whole ton of arch support, but it at least didn't gouge into her tiny little feet when she wore them.  They held up really, really well, and they had really good traction.  They were still a little wide for her narrow feet, but better than the Keds had been with the wide, flat bottoms.

Their sandal options weren't quite as great, most of them were a little low and cut into her foot, so we've changed to Adidas sandals since.  Flip-flops don't really work all that great on a climbing toddler, so we only use those for the pool or hot tub.

This post is relevant to maybe 10% of the parent population, as I think wide feet are a much bigger issue with littles, but hopefully it will be useful to someone.  I did just order a pair of New Balance tennis shoes, I'll see how those go.  There seriously needs to be some sort of "rent-a-shoe" thing online where they'll mail you shoes and a return box, and you get the shoes for 48 hours to try on your child, it's impossible to eyeball shoes on the internet.

Value:  $35.  A little more than I want to spend for multiple pairs of shoes every few months, but it's literally the only option I've found.
Child entertainment level:  N/A
Practicality:  If your toddler has high arches/insteps, this seems to be the best option available.

Babylegs

We live in the midwest.  Sort of the upper midwest - the part that gets mega-cold in the winter, and super-ultra humid in the summer.  We probably have more than four seasons - six, maybe?  Cold-as-crap winter, why-isn't-it-spring-yet, spring, I'm-going-to-melt summer, Indian summer (I hope that's okay to say?!), and fall.  So, as you can likely guess, that means we have to have a plethora of clothing on hand at all times.  Long-sleeved shirts, short-sleeved shirts, snow pants, tank tops, rain boots, snow boots, flip-flops.  We have to have them all available at any given moment, because you sometimes have no clue how the weather will be when you walk outside.

It also means that it's hard to climate-control your house sometimes.  We had a three-story townhouse when A was an infant - the top story is hard to cool in the summer, hard to heat in the winter.  Since the bedrooms were up there, it meant that you really had to dress according to the season - layers and layers and layers.  A was born in the middle of summer, so we got her those little sleep gown things:

They're sorta awesome because you can change the baby's diaper without unzipping or unsnapping anything.  We would just put some little socks on her (if it was a concern), and she'd be fine sleeping.  I mean, we had the occasional diaper blowout in them, so several of them sort of looked like this at the end, but I don't know ANY type of pajama that wouldn't have been similar:

(Yes, I AM a professional artist.  Thank you for noticing.)

Poop stains on sleep gowns aren't really the point of this post (mostly just gross filler).  The point is, I loved these sleep gowns and will totally use them again if we have another child, because I'm too lazy to take off pants for a 3 a.m. diaper change.

The problem became what to do once fall and winter hit.  I had a variety of thin and thicker ones of these, but they only go up to a certain size, and her little legs were now long enough to stick out the bottom.  I really was still pretty anti-pants-during-nighttime-diaper-changes, so I struck upon what I find to be the perfect solution:  BabyLegs!  (LINK)

What are BabyLegs?  They're like awesome little 80s-Flashdance legwarmers for infants/toddlers, usually made in either cotton or polyester, and they do have organic ones.  There are other brands, but I always did the BabyLegs brand because I knew it, and because I liked their designs.  What I would essentially do is put the BabyLegs on A, diaper, and then a sleep gown over the top - keeping her legs warm, yet still ensuring that I could change a diaper blindfolded in the middle of the night:

She was pretty young in that shot, maybe 5 or 6 months.  They went pretty well up to the top of her thighs, and had lots of room down by the ankles.

Here's a shot around a year - I know you're jealous of our fashion sense (we had probably 15 pairs, these went the best with this particular dalmatian print):

(Yep, that's a stuffed possum beside her.)

That's just to show that they still went all of the way up her legs with more room at a year old.  We've gotten our money's worth out of them.

The problems with BabyLegs?  There aren't a ton, but here's what I've got:

1.  At first blush, you think they might be a little expensive ($12 or so per pair, sometimes more for organics and such).  But the good part about that is that BabyLegs has monster sales a few times a year.  I'd save up and they'd have a crazy sale that was something like "take $20 off of a $40 order" - and most of the stuff would already be on clearance.  I'd wind up getting five to ten pairs for $20 or so.  They also have a pretty healthy clearance section at all times that's about 50% usually.

2.  They get sort of addictive.  That sounds silly, but you wind up wanting different ones that they can wear under a tutu out of the house - but then you'll need one to match a pink skirt, and a green skirt, and a... you get the idea.  And they also sell socks and tights - of COURSE you want to get the socks that match the leg warmers you have, right?  So it's sort of a hard habit to break.  I know some people just buy knee-high socks and convert them to baby leg warmers to accommodate this.

So, in short, we are BabyLeggers.  We've been BabyLeggers for a long time, and will be for a long time.  I will pump the Flashdance theme song and put them on any offspring I pump out for the remainder of my reproductive life.  I just wish I could find them in day-glo colors.

Value:  $12 or so regular, but look for their sales.  You can also find sales on these at places like Babysteals.com, mamabargains.com, etc., if you watch closely - not quite as many designs available, but they're still a great deal.
Child entertainment level:  Not applicable.  Unless they really like Flashdance.
Practicality:  10/10.  For me, these were THE only nighttime solution.  I have sort of a "thing" about my babies wearing pants during the day (it's related to germs, don't ask), but these were lifesavers when A would sleep through diaper changes.