Are hiking sandals or Xero Shoes safe for toddlers? The answer is both yes and no-ish.
The Yes is based on looking at how toddlers walk and run. They’re using their feet naturally. They run with amazingly perfect form almost all the time, until you start putting them in shoes. So to let them continue to use their feet naturally, to get that same barefoot experience but with a layer of protection and comfort, is a wonderful thing and I highly recommend it.
The no-ish part is we’re currently not making sandals for toddlers. We’re not making our Z-Trail hiking sandal, for example, in a toddler size, but would be available in children and youth sizes as they grow older. What thousands have done, though, is get our do-it-yourself sandal-making kits and then lacing them up so they work well for toddlers.
One thing about toddlers, they do tend to put a lot of friction on the bottom surface of a sandal, so if you’re going to make one of our do-it-yourself huarache kits, you’re going to want to use some flexible epoxy or what we sell as Shoe Goo and put that on the laces on the abrasion points on the bottom of the sandal and in the point just above the top of the sandal — the places where kids are going to generate a bunch of friction. That way, the laces will last longer.
