Feet grow on their own schedule, and that schedule never matches the one on your phone. The kids' shoes end up in the car, at the other house, or at the bottom of a backpack, and one morning somebody is standing at the door in a pair that pinches. A monthly look fixes most of it.

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The monthly look

Pick one day a month that is not the day before picture day. Sunday works, or the last pickup of the month. Line up every pair of shoes each child wears, at both houses, and check three things. Press your thumb at the front of each shoe: there should be a thumb's width of room, not a squeeze. Look at the heel for slipping, and at the sole for wear on one side only. Check the laces and the tongue for anything that has gone flat or stopped holding.

Write the result in one line in the same place you keep the kids' calendar, so the next person knows what they are looking at.

Keep one spare pair

Decide which pair lives at which house. A common setup is a school pair that rides in the bag and an everyday pair that stays put. The spare is the one that saves a morning. When a pair gets outgrown, the replacement goes to the house where the kid is more active that week, and the old pair goes to the hand-me-down bag.

Name who buys the next pair

Shoes should be bought by one named person, not whoever notices first. Write that name down. Everyone else gets a text with the current size and the date the old pair started pinching, so the buyer is not guessing. Before you go to the store, ask about the return window and whether the shop will swap a size if the first one is wrong. Choose the place with the simplest swap rule.

Bring the kid into the check

Older kids can do the thumb test themselves. Make it part of the monthly look, and they will tell you early when a heel has started to rub. A kid who says so out loud is much easier to fix for than one who limps through a game and says nothing.