This Mom's Deep Dive Revealed Five Things To Look For When Purchasing Toddler Shoes

When shopping for toddler shoes, factors like comfort, price, and style matter. These are the kinds of things we look for when shopping for our own shoes. However, the kinds of shoes that parents buy for their young kids might have a major effect on how a toddler’s foot develops.

In a now-viral video, a toddler mom talks about everything she learned after she took a "deep dive" into the world of toddler sneakers. She explains that until her toddler shoe epiphany, she usually purchased Target’s Cat and Jack brand for her 16-month-old’s feet.

However, once she started researching and discovered that the popular shoes were "not great" for his feet, she decided to make it her mission to find the best possible shoes for his foot development. After doing some research, she noted five different factors to consider when purchasing toddler shoes.

“You want five things: a pull-on loop, a wide toe box, a firm but flexible heel, velcro, and a slight rise in the toe,” Maura Powers said. “And I am so happy that nothing worked out at that shoe store because I was able to go home and actually like research and I found out about this thing called APMA.”

Powers noticed that while shopping on Nordstrom’s website, there was a filter for “APMA Approved” shoes. APMA, aka American Podiatric Medical Association, has an entire list of shoe brand recommendations for adults and children. While sorting through the site, Powers was shocked to see major, reputable name-brand shoes only had one or two shoe types for kids on the list.

However, there was one brand of children’s shoes that seemed to be the top pick from experts.

“So, when you go to the website you can click “Children's Footwear,” and it's gonna sort by model and then the make will be underneath it ... but then you can click the brand there ... it'll show you all of the models that are approved,” she explains while showing how to search.

“I was shocked to see that Nike only has one approved children's shoe — the Nike Swoosh one is the only approved children's shoe. New Balance had quite a few, but the one that was approved and then also hitting all the marks of everything I saw from like different OTs and PTs was Stride Rite, but only certain collections,” she noted.

After more research, Powers narrowed down her search to four different shoes:

• Stride Rite 360 Nick Sneaker
• New Balance 574 Newbie
• New Balance 574 Newby Hook and Loop
• Saucony Jazzlight 2.0

“The only one that was showing up as APMA approved literally everywhere I looked was the Stride Rite Nick. It's part of the 360 collection which is an approved collection by the APMA,” Powers continued.

Powers also realized that the long-time parenting hack of buying kids’ shoes a little big so they can wear them for longer is not the best practice when it comes to proper shoe development.

“My son is between a 5 1/2 and a 6, and he has wide chunky little feet ... what I learned ... is you're not supposed to size up just because they have wider feet. It messes up their balance unless the shoe says to. So, part of why I went with the Stride Rite Nick sneaker is you can take the sole out for wider feet. So, I liked that because they don't make them in a wide. Also, they're really cute,” she concluded.

Several TikTok users agreed with Powers’ recommendation of Stride Rite for toddlers.

"We love Stride Rite! Now that I know better I'm doing better. We were just buying whatever was cute at Walmart," wrote one user.

"Yes this!! People talk so much about baby health and all that they do, but never enough about feet," another affirmed.

"We absolutely love our Stride Rite shoes. You can find them on Zulily and Kohl's super cheap," one user recommended.

While Powers opted for the Nick Sneaker from Stride Rite, Forbes chose the Stride Rite Soft Motion Kylo Sneaker as the Best Toddler Shoe Overall in 2023.