We do love stride rite shoes.  My son wears xw so it is hard to find good shoes he likes and that won't hurt his feet.  We had recently gotten him stride rite spiderman shoes, but he was complaining of his feet hurting.  The toe in those is to pointed/narrow. So he went back to these "blinking shoes", as we call them, and he says they don't hurt his feet- the toe box is more square.  I tried the spiderman shoes to begin with because these blinking shoes are a bit heavy in the xwide size.  13 xw for an almost 4 year old is pretty large. But he's not complaining of hurting feet anymore and they are pretty cute- especially in the dark.  On the 4th of July, while playing with his cousins and watching fireworks, it was easy to keep track of him bc of the lit up shoes!  This is the 2nd time we've ordered these and will prob. stick with them until they run out of his sizes.