15 year veteran mom of 4 with more pool memberships and beach trips and vacations than you can shake a s'more stick at...I can not tell you how many water shoes we have,
LOST, because they fall off, or are thrown off by a baby/toddler/kid who hated them
THROWN AWAY because they are falling apart or off-gassing so bad we are risking brain damage
THROWN AWAY because my husband and I want to smack ourselves in the face with the shoes rather than listen to another child cry and whine about how their feet are getting cut up/blistered/itched/bothered by the water shoes that we spent money on to AVOID them being bothered (I'm writing this tongue in cheek but seriously, my kids have SCARS from the round silicone 'screws' on their croc straps - I loved those Crocs - I mean you can put 'em in the dishwasher!! At some point you have to let them go...)
KEPT for a perfect season and spent a fortune on (hello Land's End I'm looking at you) to hand down to other children only to find out that when said children are the correct size five years later, one of the shoes has gone missing...and that's if you're lucky and the original child's foot doesn't outsmart you and grow mid-summer (cha-ching!)

But nothing is worse than finding a great pair of water shoes and then spending your beach vacation dealing with a toddler who is completely BONKERS that there is SAND IN THEIR WATER SHOES!!!!!  Take off shoes, dump sand out, put shoes on...repeat.

These amazing Carter's shoes solved every single ONE of my problems - they keep the feet IN, and the debris OUT and best of all, even the littlest kids can put them on themselves.  They can even go from pool to play and back again effortlessly.

A few tips;
- don't buy big (they may fall off and/or your kid will trip all day long). With water shoes its always better to have less room than more.
- if your kiddo is a toe-dragger, that might be a dealbreaker.  These are made of stretchy, long wearing fabric, but it IS fabric.  My 5yo insists on dragging her toes to stop her bike and would destroys the toes of these in no time flat, so these can not follow her out to play off the pool deck.
- They they wash up great - don't fall apart at all in the washing machine, but I always opt for the darker more colorful colors rather than chance sand or mud stains on a lighter color.  There was zero fading on the Navy/Pink last summer and she wore them to the pool ALLLL summer long.

Seriously, you can NOT beat these, and Amazon has them for a price that is cheaper than the Carter's store where I bought them last summer.  Gotta love it!