Yep, I hang my head in shame. Not even when she was tiny!

When she first started to walk I never got round to taking her to get them measured and could only find the shoes that I wanted on the tinterweb so ended up ordering a couple of pairs and keeping the ones that seemed to fit.  And that’s kind of what I’ve been doing ever since. To be fair, it doesn’t seem to have stunted her growth or given her visibly deformed feet (yet) so hopefully not the worst parenting fail (please don’t tell me I’m completely wrong and have in fact crippled her?!).

Anyways, I’ve recently been searching for sandals and plimsolls for Pops to wear over the summer and suddenly needed to know her foot width for the ones that seemed to be well designed and made. Not having a clue where to even guess at and rather than wasting a tonne of money on postage by ordering lots of wrong sizes I thought I should admit defeat and finally face the queues and crowds and get her measured.

Thankfully I had a spare couple of hours with only one child recently so whizzed in to our local John Lewis which has a fab childrens shoes section (Nottingham if you were wondering). The super-lovely Esther immediately came to our aid, sat us down, measured Poppy’s feet (which I discovered are 7E!) and actually listened to my shoe requirements for Pops.

I have such awful memories of a shoe shop attendant dictating to me the shoes that I could and couldn’t buy and refusing to sell me the pair of Kickers that I’d been hankering after for months, as she thought the Doc Martins were a better shoe. Ugh, seriously.  She should have tried telling that to the rest of the secondary school-aged children in the whole of UK during the 90s. Can you tell that it traumatised me??

We were so. damn. cool.

Seriously though, don’t get me started on 90s nostalgia, I could be here all night talking about Spice Girls dance routines and hair mascara.

Anyway, Esther nailed the brief and judged our style perfectly bringing back some pretty Clarks and Start Rite options as all other brands were too wide.

She also judged Poppy’s mood and expressions perfectly, coaxing out of her the reasons why she didn’t like a pair or exactly where a pair were hurting her. The first ones were too high on her ankle and too hard so we tried a less structured sandal from Start-rite.

We settled for some Start-rite Harper floral print leather sandals and pink Converse All Stars.

Side note – I actually cannot believe how expensive tiny children’s sandals are!!!! Seriously, for such a tiny amount of leather?!!!!

These were something I never would have considered but they’re really really fab and Poppy just ADORES them. She also says how comfortable they are!

Since getting home she has been a little cautious about wearing the sandals as she’s worried about tripping over. Whilst wearing the Converse on the other hand, she is so confident and has just run and run and run and run and played and run and played. Just glorious to see 🙂 She has also styled both pairs into every outfit since we got them!

*Update – She is now so so confident in the sandals and has been wearing them non-stop!

1st outfit

Top – H&M

Cardigan – Poppy & Hester however no longer in stock but similar at Jojo Maman Bebe

Bow – Poppy & Hester however no longer in stock but similar at Trotters

Jeans – H&M

2nd outfit

Dress – Coco-Belle Clothing

Bow – Papouelli

Sandals – Start-rite

Trainers – Converse