Children's sizes and the labels on them

Children's footwear numbering is genuinely confusing, and not because anybody set out to make it so. The scale restarts: it climbs through the toddler range, goes back to one for little kid, and climbs again. So a 13 is larger than a 1, which is the single most common thing people get wrong.

This is why the word next to the number matters as much as the number. A size marked without its label tells you almost nothing on its own.

The reliable way through it

Ignore the numbering and measure the foot. Our children's charts agree with each other exactly, so the length grid on this page answers for the whole run, and reading a measurement against it removes the labels from the problem entirely.

Room to grow, within reason

Children grow out of boots faster than they wear them out, and buying a size ahead is reasonable. There is a limit. A boot much too long makes the foot slide forward on every step, the heel lifts clear, and a child who trips in them will simply refuse to put them on. Half a size of growing room is sensible. A full size is a gamble. Two is a boot that sits in a cupboard until it fits, by which time it has usually been outgrown in width.

Measuring a child

• Do it standing, with the child putting weight on the foot.
• Heel against a wall, mark the paper at the longest toe.
• Measure both feet and work from the longer.
• Check again every few months rather than assuming the last measurement holds.

Pull tabs are worth a mention too. A child who can get their own boots on wears them far more than one who has to ask, and tabs the right size for small hands are the difference.

Our children's charts, 10 of them, agree with each other exactly. The labels change name partway up the run; the lengths do not jump.