Tripp Trapp^® Chair

Our first chair was a Peg Perego Siesta high chair (generously gifted before baby’s arrival) that we liked, but we transitioned my son to a child sized Ikea table/chair set around 21 months to foster the independence he was getting at school during lunch/snacks. Along with that independence came a lot of getting up during mealtimes and extra mess. :( We also fed him separately and ate dinner ourselves after he was in bed. But the few times we’d eat together, it was kinda weird that we were at the dinner table and he was beside us at his little table. We would occasionally break out the high chair and pull it up to the table for larger family dinners/events, but we had to use the tray because the base of our table blocked us from pushing the high chair all the way up. At almost 2.5, it just seemed odd to go backwards to a high chair as a solution for family dining. I’d heard of this chair before and looked into it to see if it may work for our current needs. I was wary of the price tag...we already have one expensive chair for him. I looked at other options, but none of them were as sleek or had the color(s) I wanted. So, I took the plunge. The chair has worked out really well. Assembly was a little tricky/required some precision, but nothing I wasn’t able to casually complete by myself in less than an hour. The manufacturer’s assembly video I found online definitely helped to supplement the manual. The final adjustments were much more challenging given that I had to try to get a toddler to properly sit still in the chair multiple times to get it right before final tightening. But that part won’t have to be repeated for a while. As an aside, I usually ignore guidance to not use power tools when assembling stuff and opt to use my husband’s stuff instead of manual tools. Definitely use the Allen wrench provided though. It’s not hard or time consuming to use it, and you have to slightly tighten/loosen parts of it multiple times, which would probably actually be more challenging with a power tool. Thankfully I was able to see color swatches in my local Nordstrom. The Hazy Grey color is a perfect complement to our wooden, grey stained dining table. There are chair colors to meet almost any need, but I wish there were more options for neutral, more mature cushion patterns (not the busy patterns). I was also glad to see a chair on display so I could measure it and make sure the bottom was high enough to clear the base of our table. My son is doing very well with the chair thus far. It helps that we can push him up and kind of trap him so he’s not getting up constantly. ;) But he definitely sits in place longer even if it is not pushed in. It’s so much better for us to be able be seated at the same table for family dinners now. I definitely think he will be able to use this chair for years...without dropping food on the good chairs. I did get the junior cushion also, but hesitated to put it on initially. Glad I didn’t because my son has been fine without it, and he has also created several messes in the chair. The cushion would just be one more thing to keep clean. May return or save for later. It is not ideal to have so much money invested in chairs, so I have wondered if this chair would have been a better option from the start. But we really did like our original high chair for the infant stage. We also moved a year ago and replaced the dining table, so a chair that matched the first table wouldn’t match our current one. I guess you couldn’t go wrong getting this from the start. But since it was our 2nd chair, I was glad that we could save some money by just getting the basic chair for our toddler. Definitely recommend if you think it will meet your needs.