To have a rant about high chairs...

[susannahmoodie]

Had a few Lunches out over the holidays and we are now away in the Scottish highlands. Every Cafe we have gone into recently has had a massively complicated over engineered high chair, with huge flip over tray which you have to force click into position meaning the baby is sitting about two feet away from the table. They also have a stupidly huge footprint with legs everywhere for the waitresses to trip over, have a icky soft plastic cover with grime crusted in the seams and then a complex arrangement of straps for between the legs so that the baby doesn't slip through the bottom.....why why why can't they buy the ikea antilop for £14 and be done with it??!!

Probably because Ikea is a 6 hour round trip away?

I'm with you OP, those ones are usually filthy as much harder to keep clean, they're impossible to put up and massive. The ikea ones or the wooden stackable ones are a much better idea for restaurants and cafes.

Presumably they have gone for an option that is cheap and easy to get hold of.

I usually hate ikea but agree they do have the best high chair by a food propelling mile!

Grrrr this gives me the rage, and makes eating out bloody difficult, my baby is a bit fussy about high chairs.

I hate the big clumsy looking ones that for some unknown reason tilt back slightly. Why would the most sitting up position still be tilted back?! It's bloody dangerous having a baby eating not sitting up straight!

I am always inclined to revisit a pub/cafe that use the Antilop. However we also holiday in the Scottish Highlands and the remoteness means I am usually jist happy there is a highchair available.

The worst places are those with the varnished wooden ones that have no real shape and are so wide and square they are really only suitable for 2 yos.

I kept a collapsible booster type seat in the car for when we ate out. Simple and I knew it was clean and he could sit in it well.

Maybe those ones are just easier to get hold of up there.

But as long as it's possible to secure the baby properly I don't mind too much if the highchairs are big ones. We've had problems with the wooden stackable type before, some of the ones I've come across in restaurants / cafes are next to impossible to safely restrain a wiggly baby in.

I hate these ones. 13mo DS is a little escape artist and can slip out of the crappy harness in about five seconds flat. He's a leaner too and will lean right over the side, for a look at whatever he's chucjed on the floor, to the point that he'll be almost toppling out of it. Then, just in case the meal wasn't stressful enough, he will twist around and attempt to drop out of one of the leg holes. I love Costa it they usually have these highchairs so it makes me not go there very often.

Yes, the tilting back!! Why??

YANBU!
There are other simple and effective high chairs if IKEA is not accessible.

I've ended up not using high chairs when they've been such an awkward angle and stopped the baby/ toddler from reaching their own meal because they're so tilted. Adult dining furniture isn't designed like that.
(Although I eagerly await the day that chunky upholstered dining chairs go out of fashion, the type that are heavy and impossible to sit on and move simultaneously.)

For the simple reason that the chair folds flat and can be tucked away somewhere when not in use. They probably don't have that many high chair patrons.

(I agree, though. They're generally rank, the waiter rarely knows how to put them up properly, and there are often bits missing.)