Saturday, February 16, 2013

First shoes

When does the child need his first shoes?
Even that markets are trying to persuade us with a big selection of lovely, colourful shoes for babies, it is absolutely not necessary for children up to the age of one year to have any shoes at all. Generally speaking: Until the baby is walking by itself and running outside, it doesn´t need to have shoes.  If we make such a mistake and put on shoes at the time the baby is not ready for it, we can cause a lot of problems in their future – first of all, ill shaped feet,  flat – feet, problems with knees and hip joints, abnormal finger position or buckling in, on the top of these issues also back related issues.
The best way is to let the child walk  without any shoes. Such natural walking, strengthen bones and exercise feet muscles, maintain strong and flexible tendons and ligaments and also works as prevention against flat feet. 
In this stage, shoes, preferably slippers have just a protective function.  The shoes protects the child against the cold, dampness and injury.  When you find shoes which matches your requirements and fit the child´s feet, you should buy two of them, because child´s feet gets sweaty very easily and which makes great opportunity for bacteria and mould to grow inside the shoe.
If you have a cold ground or just want the baby to use the slippers for walking at home, think about slip sole, comfort, space, but not much, it should just fit the child´s feet and especially don´t forget to alternate it with slip sole socks. Slippers which are just the best as a first shoes are for example these:

When buing shoes for proper walking, there are few things you should keep in mind:
Toe shoe should be round (as the child´s foot needs space to spread the fingers enough)
Ideal size of the shoe is 1 to 1,5cm bigger that the child´s feet in width and length
Big mistake is to buy one size bigger shoe, because the size is increased both in width and height
You should check the child´s shoes every month, because their feet grow very quickly and they can be too small for them, before you even know it, which can cause a lot of deformations as mentioned before.
Shoes should have a little heel on it's whole bottom side because child´s feet are very sensible, way more than our own feet. Thus they can feel every stone they step on so they need bigger feet protection.
Never buy shoes on the internet, metrics of every shop and manufacturer are different and every child has an individual feet shape, so you definitely need to try it on first if it fits properly.
Another very important point is the feet hygiene – cutting the nails, wearing cotton socks, etc.
Always measure size of the feet when the child is standing. These days quite modern technology of 3D scanners can be used to measure the feet size with a very high precision   followed by the advice you can see on the device screen which size to buy.
We shouldn´t forget to measure sizes of instep and feet itself as they can cause the feet deformations.
Good and quality child shoes also have following properties:
    ◦ Softness
    ◦ Very light
    ◦ Material, which is able to absorb the dampnes well
    ◦ Leather
    ◦ Airy
    ◦ Good bending properties
    ◦ Special isolation material to soften feet impact on the ground

Games, for feet arch support exercise
It is very helpful to play special games with the children that are intended to support it's feet arch structure.
Picking up stone or some other object: the child is suppose to pick up the little stone by his foot and walk around the room. If it is successful the stone can be passed from one foot to the other.
Drawing with the feet: we can use crayons and let the child colour with it or just create usual footprints.
Walking on tiptoe
Swinging from tip to heel

Questions  

Do you know why infant have a flat feet?
Because the inner part of the foot sole is filled with fat pad that disappears after the second year of life. 
Did you notice that even when the child is outside during winter wearing quality shoes and warm socks on drawers it still has a cold feet? Why? Do you know the answer to that?
The answer is that child doesn't need thick and warm sock into it's shoe, because that only takes the heat from the feet and it prevents the blood from flowing and heating the feet.
???

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