When can babies wear shoes?

The verdict

Not until they are walking outdoors, and then only outdoors.

The common belief is that shoes help a baby learn to walk, or support a developing foot, or correct the way the ankles roll. None of that is how feet work. A shoe is a piece of ground protection. It stops a foot being cut, burned, frozen or stung. It does not teach anything.

Why bare feet are better before then

A baby learning to stand and walk is running a continuous feedback loop between the soles of the feet and the balance system. The nerve endings in the sole report pressure, texture and the angle of the surface, and the body corrects for it constantly.

Put a shoe on and you dampen that signal. You also add weight to the end of a limb that a baby is only just learning to control, and you stiffen the joints that are supposed to be flexing.

Bare feet also let the intrinsic muscles of the foot do their job: gripping, spreading, pushing off. Those are the muscles that build the arch, which is why a baby's foot looks flat for the first couple of years and gradually does not.

Indoors, keep them bare after walking too

Once your child is walking, shoes go on to go out and come off when you get back. There is no reason to wear shoes on a carpet.

The exception is a slippery floor. Bare feet grip better than plain socks on laminate or tile, and a cruising baby in loose socks on a hard floor will go over. If you want feet covered indoors, use socks with grips on the sole, or slipper socks that fit properly, rather than plain ones.

The thing that actually damages baby feet

It is not the absence of shoes. It is clothing that is too small.

The bones in a baby's toes are soft, and they take years to harden fully. If they are cramped by tight socks or a sleepsuit that has been outgrown, they cannot straighten out and grow properly. A baby cannot tell you a sleepsuit is short, and they will not fuss about it.

So the practical check is a weekly one. Press your thumb at the end of a sleepsuit or sock and find the toes. If they are at the end or curled, the garment is done, however much wear is left in the body of it. Babygrows with feet are outgrown at the foot long before they are outgrown anywhere else, and cutting the feet off an otherwise fitting sleepsuit is a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

The same applies to all-in-one pram suits and to sleeping bags with integrated feet.

Buying the first pair

Once your child is walking outside confidently, they need shoes for outside. A few things are worth getting right.

Get the feet measured. Both feet, length and width, standing up and bearing weight, by someone who does it properly. Feet are frequently different sizes, and you fit to the larger one.

Remeasure every two to four months. Feet grow fast and unpredictably in the first years, and a shoe that fitted at the start of a season is often too short by the end of it.

Flexible sole. You should be able to bend the shoe easily at the ball of the foot. A rigid sole makes walking harder, not safer.

Wide, deep toe box. Toes should lie flat and be able to spread. A tapered fashionable toe is the wrong shape for a foot at any age and particularly this one.

A fastening that holds the heel. Laces, a buckle or a hook-and-loop strap. Slip-on shoes let the foot slide forward, which pushes the toes into the end of the shoe with every step – the exact problem you are trying to avoid.

Light and breathable. Natural linings and socks with a high natural fibre content let feet breathe. Babies' feet sweat a great deal.

Second-hand shoes are the one hand-me-down to skip

Almost everything else can be passed on. Shoes should not be. A worn shoe has moulded to the previous child's foot, and the wear pattern on the sole reflects how that child walked. It is one of the few pieces of children's equipment where buying new genuinely matters, and cheap new shoes that fit are better than expensive used ones that do not.

Pre-walkers, soft shoes and the occasion problem

Soft leather booties and pram shoes are essentially socks and are fine on that basis: they keep feet warm, they do not restrict movement, and they do nothing else. If you want your baby to wear something on their feet for a wedding, that is the category to choose.

What is not useful is a hard-soled shoe on a baby who is not walking. It restricts the foot, adds weight, and buys nothing.

What is normal, and when to ask

NHS guidance describes the common variations in babies' and toddlers' legs and feet – feet that look flat, toes that turn in or out, legs that look bowed – and notes that these are usually part of normal development and resolve on their own.

What is worth mentioning to a health visitor or GP is a foot or leg problem that is painful, that affects only one side, that seems to be getting worse rather than better, or that is affecting how your child moves. Foot shape and gait are among the things looked at in the routine health and development reviews carried out in the first years, which is a natural moment to raise it.

Shoes do not fix any of these things, and a shop that tells you a particular shoe will correct an in-toeing gait is selling rather than advising.

Where guidance differs

Not much, and mostly in emphasis. UK, Irish and American advice all treat shoes as outdoor protection and prefer bare feet indoors for pre-walkers and new walkers.

No health service publishes a shoe age. The threshold is walking outdoors, not a month. That is why a nine-month-old cruiser and an eighteen-month-old who has just started walking get the same answer.

Nobody recommends supportive or corrective footwear for typically developing babies. Where a child has a diagnosed foot or gait condition, orthotics or specific footwear may be prescribed by a clinician – and that is a prescription, not a shopping decision.