Shoes for older kids?

[wednesday]

Stride-rites just don't work on DS, even the salesguy at the store said they are more for wider feet. We live in a small town too and he said they get whatever selection corporate decides to send, and in our area they just send the wide shoes. We can hardly shop for anything locally to tell the truth. DS seems to like Merrells and I see cute styles online but locally we can only get the plain loafers. I just wondered if there are other good brands of high-quality shoes that people like. Sometimes we travel to a bigger city (like Atlanta or Raleigh, but actually we're in San Francisco this weekend) and can take DS somewhere to try shoes on, but we don't really know where to look. He's 4 and currently wearing a toddler size 10 but I think they're getting too tight.

Thanks!

[Adele_Mommy]

My dd has quite narrow feet and the only brand of tennis shoes she will wear is Nike. When she grows out of them we just order the next size up in the same style online.

[hottmama]

I like www.joshoes.com. They make soft-soles up to age 7 (supposedly-- they won't last my kids quite that long). They are made of really high quality leather and hold up for many months. Also, they're handmade in the USA, so you know some little kid didn't make your little kid's shoes! My oldest is 5, a size 12.5, and wears 5-6 yr. Joshoes. My 2 yr. old wears a 9 and is about to outgrow the 2-3 yr. size.