Hey, you're new! I love new people, welcome.

You may want to subscribe to Baby-Log via RSS feed or via email. Thanks for visiting!

Baby in a High ChairContinuing from my last post, here are more tips to help you buy a high chair that you will be happy with.

Comfort for the baby

In terms of comfort there are 4 things about any high chair that I’d paid attention to:

1. The seat needs to be wide enough.

Some chairs have very narrow seats, I took Eric with me when we went shopping and amazingly he didn’t fit into 50% of the high chairs we tried. And he’s not a gigantic toddler!

2. There should be a crotch bar to prevent the kid from sliding under the tray. It can be either attached to the seat (better for babies) or it can be a part of the tray (more convenient for toddlers).

3. The padding needs to be sufficient. After all, your child will spend at least half an hour per meal in this chair.

4. The footrest needs to be adjustable.

Ease of use for mom and dad

An easy to handle high chair to me has the following things:

1. Singe-handed release tray. Can’t stress enough how convenient that is.

2. Adjustable height

Adjustable height is not a must, but here is what it’s good for:

  1. You can slide the seat down and move the high chair under the table, just like you would do with any normal chair, thus saving space.
  2. You can adjust the height and sit your kid with the rest of the family by the kitchen table (just take the tray off).

    3. Buckled in, he /she won’t fall out and will enjoy being a big boy / girl and eating with grown-ups.

  3. My kid loves climbing into his high chair.

    4. We don’t have an adjustable height feature and I have to be ready to catch him every time he climbs up or down. If I could adjust the height, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.

3. No wheels – or at least no self-locking wheels. Wheels are a high-maintenance feature. You need to remember to lock and unlock them, and if they are of a self-locking kind, they tend to lock when you don’t want them to. A chair with no wheels will be also less tempting for your child to roll around the kitchen :) and your toddlers won’t have that chance of an accident when they lean on a chair with unlocked wheels and it slides away.

And finally, if your family travels a lot, you would need to consider how easy the chair is to fold and how much it space takes folded. It is better to check these things, because some chairs fold to a very compact size – while other barely fit in the trunk.