How to fix kids' wellies

Kids’ wellies are crap. Mostly.

Kids’ wellies are almost always total crap. In fact, the only saving grace of kids’ wellies is that while they are crap, they are usually cheap. As adults, we can decide to spend a small fortune on a decent pair of wellies because there’s every chance we’ll get many years use out of them. If we’re particularly lucky, or go outside particularly infrequently, then we may even be able to wear the same pair of wellies for several decades.

Kids grow so fast that there’s little chance of them getting more than a few months of wear out of any footwear, let alone wellies. This could be why it’s not easy to buy good wellington boots for children.

Maybe the market (us!) doesn’t demand high-quality wellies because we know what a short window of opportunity there is to get as much use out of them as possible. But the same could be said for school shoes, and yet we’re prepared to spend more on school shoes than we are on our own shoes. But at least school shoes are primarily fit for purpose. Cheap kid’s wellies are not.

How do kids wreck their wellies?

For once, I don’t think children are wholly to blame for wrecking their wellies. The truth is that the wellies just aren’t made very well. Every pair of child-size wellington boots that have come through this household has been cheaply made. The emphasis appears to be on appearance over function.

If you have a daughter then you have probably already bought (and chucked out) several pairs of wellies that are adorned with bright images of flowers, fairies or (shudder) bloody Frozen characters. If you have a son, then there’s a good chance that several of the pairs of wellies your child has knackered had a character like Spiderman printed on them.

I get the association on girls’ wellies – flowers and fairies are known to live in environments sympathetic to the wearing of wellies. The characters in Frozen could probably have benefitted from a decent pair of wellies for larking about in the snow.

The choice of characters chosen for the designs on boy’s wellies seems to have only a gossamer thin association with the wearing of wellington boots. For example, I don’t recall ever seeing Spiderman swinging like a goodun through the skyscrapers of New York with a pair of wellies on. Probably because they’d fly off his feet, in the same way that kids’ wellies do when faced with the simple task of protecting your offspring’s feet from mud.

Any parent, grandparent or semi-tolerant aunt or uncle knows that if your charge goes anywhere near mud, then they will definitely lose their wellies at some point. The remarkable aspect of this is that the child rarely seems to notice that they have lost at least one welly and continues walking, planting the foot no longer protected by a welly straight into the nearest muddy puddle or dog shit. Without. Fail.

The Wellington boot paradox

I have never quite figured out why the wellies we buy for our kids are so damned short. My own wellington boots almost reach my knees. The tall wellies adults wear are perfect for standing in deep puddles without risking the ingress of murky water. The fact is that even when wearing wellies, I’m unlikely actually to test them to the point of a breach.

Most kids’ wellies only seem to reach halfway up the little darlings’ shins. Naturally, this total lack of lower leg integrity invites, neigh begs the child to stand in the water much deeper than the height of the welly allows for. What results is an phenomenon I call the ‘Wellington boot paradox’. As soon as your child’s boots are full of water, you realise that wellies are much better at keeping water in than they are at keeping water out.

Yes, but how do kids wreck their wellies?

On a purely mechanical level, kids’ wellies get trashed because they are made of a low-grade PVC that tears when flexed. I wear Grubbs Wellies, these are made of a heavy rubber-like material on the bottom/foot section and waterproof neoprene from the ankle upwards. So they flex really well.

Because kids’ wellies are made of crappy PVC they flex at the ankle and bridge of the foot. Repeated flexing of the PVC, from something as simple as walking, weakens the PVC and it rips.

The rip is often on the lower section of the boot, ensuring that your child will get soggy socks if they perambulate on anything as wet as slightly dewy grass. Spending time with a child who has cold, wet socks is a miserable experience, especially for adults.

How to fix kid’s wellies – finally!

Although kids grow out of footwear incredibly quickly, it’s still worth repairing crappy wellies. Fortunately, the holes and tears in wellies are very easy to fix, and all you need is a puncture repair kit. You can find puncture repair kids for a pittance on Amazon or at a cycling shop. But you’ll do just as well with puncture repair kit from one of the many pound shops that fill the high street of your nearest metropolis. Quality doesn’t appear to be an issue here. I repaired the photos below using a puncture repair kit found in the back of my in-laws’ garage. This kit was definitely older than my daughter, and there’s every chance it’s older than me.

The area on the boot you’re repairing must be really clean before making the repair. If there’s any trace of mud, grime, dog shit or nuclear waste then your patch won’t adhere properly. It’s also worth pushing against the tear from the inside with a finger to make sure there’s no mud/dog poo trapped actually in the tear.