That's why I never buy a pair of pants unless they have the adjustable waist elastic in them. I've seen sz1 pants with the same width waist band as a sz5 in some brands and there is no way known that they would fit a baby/small child, even the chubbiest babies wouldn't fit them I don't think. We've been really lucky with shoes though because there are only 3 brands of shoes that I buy my kids - clarks, gro-shu and Thomas Cook because they are the only ones that have a wide fitting but if I brought a heap of different shoe brands I would notice probably.