My 3 1/2 year old daughter wants to take skating lessons, and I'm trying to find figure skates in her size. She has little hockey skates that she skates in on public sessions, but she wants skates like mine with a toe pick. She has really small feet (shoe size 8 toddler,) and I haven't been able to find anything that small online.

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Jessica

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The Jackson SoftSkate is a great beginner figure skate. I found it in size 8 at Ocean Hockey. If you can't get it from them, for any reason, you can google "Jackson SoftSkate tots" to find other stores that might have it in stock.

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You may find that the size your child takes in a shoe is not the same as in a skate. A child I know fitted a size 7 or 8 shoe but actually fitted into a size 10 skate -- and she wasn't even 2.

Try having the child stand (if you can keep them still) on the insole of a skate and see if it fits the foot.

That is totally bizzare, because skates run larger than shoes, so one takes a size smaller in skates than in shoes. At any rate, the Jacksons should be about a size smaller than the shoe, with a little more leeway given for tots, as they grow so fast.

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I find the same thing for my daughter. She currently wears a size 10-11 in regular street shoes (she has very tiny feet) but her new skates are 12.5 Riedells. Her first pair, when she was wearing a size 7-8 street shoe, were a size 10 Riedells.

With my Jacksons, I take a size smaller than my street size, yet my brother takes a size bigger than street size. Go figure! (no pun intended!)

You'll also find that Risport make tiny figure skates, down to about a euro size 26 which is TINY!!


There is a pair of size 10 Riedell's on eBay at the moment going cheap
http://cgi.ebay.com/Girls-Riedell-Wh...QQcmdZViewItem

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

Riedells are notoriously narrow, and I've had far too many LTS students in Riedells that were too way too big because the correct size was too narrow. If you don't go to a professional fitter who is also a good fitter (professional does not necessarily = good), you can easily get the wrong size. That being said, don't you live in Australia, AW1? American and European sizes are different, so maybe they are also different in Australia.

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Our local Play-It-Again Sports carries the Jackson Softecs (new ones, although they may have used too). I don't know if they all carry new skates or if some of them only have used ones, but either way, you could try that. Kids outgrow skates so fast at that age that used skates (unless they were cheapo skates to begin with) are usually in pretty good condition.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

Yeah I'm in Australia. But I did send off her foot tracing and measurements to a proper Riedell fitter (8 hours drive away) and that's the size he put her in to allow for a little growth.

I think your sizing is slightly different to ours, but they still reckon skate sizes are smaller than street shoes here too, which doesn't always work?? I dunno!

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AW1
mum to Miss Lil (6yrs old)
mum to be to #2 due in March 08

My son who is 2 has a pair of size 8 jacksons, they are fine for his age and level of um No ability lol..

My 3.5 year old daughter who has been skating a year now is in a size 12.5 skate!! AHHHHH how scary is that. lol She is in a little more expensive riedell but i have noticed the difference since the upgrade in skate.

I found my sons though at the rink. It was a used pair someone else had been trying to sell for a few years Good luck

this was the bane of our existence for years...grin....

if you find you don't like Riedell, try GAMS...they come as small (or used to) as a 6 toddler. [that was our first pair], we stayed in gams till size 1.5 and had to move to a jackson, then promptly moved from jackson to graf...where
at age 15 she is in the graf hinged size 3....and has been for two years now...

you'll find as yours grows if she stays small but progresses, that skates will be hard to find if they are little and light...sigh,,,with no ability for resale no matter how perfect they are because the people who could use them they are too much boot for...or the parents don't understand the price and quality and dismiss them as too expensive....

so try to get them used as long as you can...or trade with other parents before its too late