Refusing highchair, 17months, ideas please?!

[Inthesleeplessnightgarden]

DS, 17 months, is a great eater and for the past year has sat nicely in his highchair to eat his meals.

The past week or so he has begun screaming when lifted into it. Arching back, locking legs the lot. He will not calm until taken out. He is obviously hungry as he'll try to reach food off the table once he's calmed. I've tried using a booster chair instead of his Tripp trapp but he's not having that either.
He has lunch with our nanny, who says he's been fine with her.
I don't want to make a big deal of it, but nor do I want him to eat wandering around the house, which he will do. I definitely don't want to put him to bed hungry.
Any ideas on how to get him back to eating in his highchair? Do you think it's just a phase (please?!).

Mine did that to. It wasn't just a phase; it was permanent, which is just as well as he is grown up now. I think we just managed with a thick cushion on a normal chair at the table. For breakfast and snacks, he could also eat sitting on the couch, using the largest one of a nest of tables as his table.

Probably about becoming more independent. Ds is a few months older and is often just overwhelmed and overtired by dinner (he teeths for months which doesn't help).

Do you tell him its nearly dinner time he'll be going in his seat soon? Perhaps he's just overcome with hunger and getting wound up so protesting the only way he can. I often give ds bits of cheese or cooked meat or other ingredients while cooking which helps to keep things calm.

If ds is really upset about being in his seat I let him sit on my lap, which means its harder for me to eat but he's quite skinny so I'd rather he ate something. Or spread an old towel / tablecloth on the floor and have a picnic possibly with the tv on.

I moved him to a booster seat at around that age and now at 21 months he likes to climb into it himself.

Can you get him a little table and chair? Or take the tray away and sit at the table directly and you eat with him?

Thanks all, though it's not looking good from your responses! He doesn't have a tray on the highchair, and we do try to eat with him, or at least have a cup of tea. Showme, I think you might be right with the tired and hungriness, might try bringing tea forward but would prob mean our nanny giving it to him if I'm not back in time

My dd did this so after a bit of wrangleing we got her to sit on a little chair at the coffee table. We took the high chair away and pretty much as soon as we did that, she wanted it back because it was a novelty and it was her choice. Now she is two and often chooses which place she will sit. When we all eat at the table, she has a choice of a normal chair or the high chair and often goes for the high chair and always goes for a high chair in cafes which is a godsend!

We had this phase, sorted by a picnic if you find one of my old posts.
I think the high chair dinner time thing was a psycologically stressful as we all sat to eat with him and maybe he felt under pressure.
We had a pasta picnic on the floor on a rug in the living room one night and each had a fork and a big bowl of pasta to eat from over a longer time than a normal dinner. It was fun for DS and I think eating became less of a stress for him. I really don't know exactly why it worked but it did!
We eat latish too but I haven't changed the time for dinner.

Sorry for got to say, we only did the picnic one night. Back to normal in high chair after that and no problems since. He'll sit and eat happily in it ith us at dinner.

DD1 did the same and never sat in a highchair again. We alternated between her sitting on an ordinary chair or sitting at her own little table and chair. No wandering allowed whichever she sat at. It's the only one of my parenting successes!

Do you still have the baby set on the tripp trapp or can he get up/down himself? I seem to remember we took the baby set off when dd2 was about 13 months as she was perfectly capable of climbing up and down on her own.