Sandals or Bare Feet? Small Feet in Summer

The first properly warm week of the year and the same question comes round: does a baby need sandals, or is bare feet fine?

Mostly bare feet. But not everywhere, and the exceptions are worth knowing before you are standing on hot decking with a screaming toddler.

Indoors and in the garden, bare is best

On grass, on a rug, on a paddling pool liner, a bare foot is doing exactly what it should. It grips, it feels the surface, and it builds the balance that a new walker is short of. Nothing you can buy improves on that.

This is the same argument we made in Do Babies Actually Need Shoes? and summer is when it is easiest to follow.

Where bare feet stop being a good idea

• Hot ground. Decking, paving, sand and the metal edges of playground equipment all get hot enough to hurt long before they look it. Press the back of your hand down for five seconds. If you would not keep it there, neither should a foot.
• Anywhere with glass. Parks, beaches, the pavement outside a pub. This is not a small risk and it is not worth taking.
• Public splash pads and pool surrounds. Rough, wet concrete removes skin from a soft foot quickly.
• Long days out. A foot that is fine for an hour is not necessarily fine for five.

What a summer shoe actually needs to do

Breathe. Small feet sweat a great deal, and a sealed synthetic upper in August is a recipe for a rash. Open weave, mesh or a proper cut-out upper.

Cover the toes. This is where adult logic fails. A new walker scuffs their toes into the ground constantly. An open-toe sandal on a child who has been walking three weeks means grazed toes by lunchtime. Closed toe until they are steady.

Fasten at the ankle. A slip-on comes off in water and stays off. A strap behind the heel is the difference between a sandal you still own in September and one you lost in June.

Survive water. Summer shoes get soaked, so they need to dry without going stiff or smelly. Removable insoles help enormously.

Still bend. All the usual rules apply. Warm weather does not change what a foot needs.

Sizing in summer

Two things move at once. Feet swell in heat, and most people stop putting socks on. Those pull in opposite directions, so do not assume last month's size still works.

Measure again, in the late afternoon when feet are at their largest, and measure barefoot if that is how the sandal will be worn. The method is in how to measure your baby's feet, and the chart in our size guide gives you foot length and insole length side by side.

Summer is also the season when a shoe that is half a size too big goes missing, for reasons covered in why baby shoes come off.

Socks or no socks

No socks with a sandal is fine and comfortable. It also means more friction and more sweat, so check the foot at the end of the day for rubbed patches, particularly around the heel strap.

Indoors on tile or laminate, a grip sock or a sock shoe is still the better option, even in August. Cool floors are slippery floors.

Rinse them, do not wash them

Sand and salt water are abrasive. A rinse under the tap and a slow dry out of direct sun does more for a summer shoe than a wash ever will, and heat is what kills them. There is a fuller method in how to clean baby shoes.

Our summer sandals are closed-toe with an ankle strap, and every pair lists foot length in centimetres.