Growing feet

At birth your baby's feet are totally different to yours. They have fewer bones and they are much softer and malleable. They will continue to change until your child is around 18 years old. At this time the bones in the feet are finally fused together. Until then they are vulnerable, and anything that restricts their development could cause permanent damage.

Children's feet grow very unpredictably. They will often grow faster in the spring and the summer, and sometimes hardly at all in the winter. It is so important to ensure your child is wearing shoes that fit properly. You should have them measured every couple of months.

Shoes that fit incorrectly can cause all sorts of problems. A baby's foot is often of differing sizes each should be measured. The soft cartilage can easily be bent out of shape in shoes that do not fit - there is often no pain as your baby is covered in a layer of puppy fat and the baby's foot is so flexible it can easily be squeezed into a badly fitted shoe, storing up trouble for the future.

Badly fitted shoes in older children are not just uncomfortable they can also cause long term health problems and even in the rest of your child's body.

Some areas of discomfort include:

Corns - a concentration of hard skin often caused by shoe pressure
Rams-horn nail - caused by continually bumping against the end of a shoe that is too short in length
Ingrowing toenail - can be caused by shoes that are too narrow pressing the big toe into the second toe
Athlete's foot - a fungal infection encouraged by materials that don't let feet breathe properly