Eating Out With Babies & Toddlers – Gadgets That Make Life Easier

As you know, I'm particularly keen on encouraging people to eat out with their babies and toddlers. I strongly believe that the social experience of a special meal away from home shouldn't be reserved for adults only. I know lots of parents are put off the idea of eating at a restaurant with their child for a number of reasons, most commonly the embarrassment of them misbehaving, but also the stress of getting them to sit still and I often hear mums complain about the cleanliness of restaurant high chairs. I thought I'd do a summary of some of the great gadgets that exist to make your life easier when eating out with a baby or child and which address some of the common concerns.

The Fabric Highchair

   

Regular readers will know that I really, really rate my Totseat (around £22) washable, squashable highchair. It has been with us the world over and has been particularly useful in parts of the world where restaurants don't commonly provide highchairs. We have used the Totseat right through from when Lara was first able to sit unaided, right through to toddlerhood. It is washable and fits on any chair, anywhere so I know that when I go into a restaurant it doesn't matter if they don't have a highchair available, or if they are all really manky – I will always have somewhere for Lara to sit. You can buy the Totseat online from lots of great retailers including My Funny Bunny and Hippychick.



We recently tried out the Koo-di Pack-It seat harness (around £10) which is, if anything, even more compact than the Totseat. It folds into itself so you don't risk the possibility of losing the carry case. It isn't quite as flexible when it comes to the numbers of styles and shapes of chair that you can put it on (our own dining chairs were too tall for it), but most restaurants (such as Cafe Rouge, above) have pretty standard shaped chairs so this would rarely be a problem. It is also washable and it is so tiny when folded that you'd have to have a pretty good excuse not to have one in your changing bag at all times. Koo-di seat harnesses can be found at Amazon John Lewis, Asda, and Mothercare among other retailers, (a complete list can be found at Koo-di's own website. The Koo-di Pack-It is suitable from 6-30 months although our reviewer felt that even at its tightest setting, the Koo-di seat harness was a little baggy for her (larger than average) 7 month old so, as always, you should exercise caution when your child sits in a highchair - particularly a fabric highchair on an adult's seat.

A foldable washable highchair such as the Koo-di Pack-It or Totseat can be life-changing. That might sound over-the-top but really, it opens up all sorts of new avenues for you of days out, or visits to restaurants or cafes you would otherwise consider off-limits. Jojo Maman Bebe sell a number of foldable highchairs – one of great interest to me is their wipe-clean pocket highchair which might save on washing the highchair after pretty much every use!

The Travel Booster
Foldable highchairs are fab but they do suffer from one down-side. Adult chairs are often very low and toddlers who want to eat at the table can struggle to reach their plates. I often get around this by sitting Lara on a cushion and then strapping her in.

  

Another solution is the travel booster seat such at this one from Polar Gear (around £22) which you can buy from Jojo Maman Bebe or Amazon. Suitable from around 1 year old, we've found the Polar Gear booster to be really well designed and effective. It straps to the seat with clip-on straps, one of which can also be used as a carry-handle (the others do tend to get in the way a bit when not in use). The seat is wipe-clean and is a good size so, unlike many travel highchairs, it will be suitable for toddlers right up until their are old enough to sit in an adult chair. The Polar Gear booster comes with a folding changing mat but we think it works well as a wipe-clean placemat to keep the dining table clean.

Amazon also sell the similar Munchkin Travel Booster (£19.99) which has the added bonus of storage space inside the booster pack to put a drink, or baby wipes.



The Tray Cover
Restaurant highchairs are not always the cleanest of things. Its hard enough keeping your own highchair clean so the last thing you want to do when you get to a restaurant is to start cleaning away other children's muck from the tray. I've seen some fairly disgusting ones in my time and have had to put in a lot of elbow grease to shift the crusty bits of baby-gack before letting Lara take her seat.



Tidy Trays (£15) have a neat solution to the problem. The Tidy Tray is a light fabric washable high chair tray cover that you can take with you anywhere. It simply slips over the tray of the restaurant's highchair meaning you're in control of the hygiene at mealtimes! Jojo Maman Bebe sell the Tidy Tray but for a full list of stockists, check out the Tidy Trays website.

The Hygeine Solution


And, if you are happy to use the restaurant's own highchair but would rather it were a little more sanitary then can I recommend these wipes from Tommee Tippee (£1.99 for 30). I know that they are called teat and teether wipes, but I now keep a pack of these biodegradable wipes in my changing bag and use them on highchairs and changing mats when I'm out and about.

Our Weaning Story - 12 Months On

This time 12 months ago, Lara started her amazing adventure into the world of solid foods. We started weaning Lara at about 18 weeks old, at the point when she would quite gladly have bitten off my hand for the chance to try something other than milk. I thought it would be fun to look back on all of the blog posts that I have written over the past year about our weaning adventure.

Weaning is a very personal thing and if there is one thing I believe, it is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. I know people who have struggled (and still struggle several years on), I know others who opted for ready made purees right up until 1 year old but now have perfectly healthy children who eat a varied diet, and I know some parents who took a strict baby-led-weaning approach with no solids at all until around 8 or 9 months. I also know that the way we weaned Lara has worked incredibly well for us, and one year on, I have a little girl of whom I am proud. She has an appetite for sweet and savoury foods of all types and is never afraid to try something new – sometimes, when sitting in a restaurant with my 17 month old girl devouring a plate full of real, grown-up food, I get an enormous sense of achievement. Weaning can be great fun.

12 months ago, Mr. B. and myself approached weaning onto solid foods with trepidation. All of the government advice tells you over and over again that you shouldn’t introduce solids until 6 months and yet our parents were both egging us on, saying that 4 months was the time to start. Lara was clearly ready for food and already had teeth coming through so we gave it a try. We started with baby porridges ( more than just a refined, bland baby rice) and fruit purees made by yours truly. We found the Annabel Karmel website a great place for finding recipes. We bought some little freezer pots so that I could make batches of baby food and put them in the freezer so that we could rotate meals and ensure that Lara had a good variety of flavours and textures. I used some printed quidelines that I got in my NCT lessons for how much of what type of food I should be offering Lara each day but quickly learned that the pots I had bought were too small and that my quidelines were totally useless! Lara went from the 1-or-2-teaspoons to the enormous-bowlful stage within a fortnight! So, here’s a top tip: don’t bother with tiny freezer pots, just buy bigger ones straight away.

As we approached Christmas last year, Lara was eating three homemade meals a day. Porridge in the morning, fruit mixes for lunch and a savoury meal in the evenings. At this point, I introduced Lara to a beaker of water with her meals. It took her quite a while to get used to the sucking motion but she soon got the hang of it. We also had a play with a few different types of bibs.

When Lara started going to the childminders in the new year, this introduced me to a whole new world of lunchbox food! I was very good and continued making Lara home-made baby food that the childminders would warm up for her. Into the new year, Lara started showing an interest in finger foods. By 8 months old, Lara was eating most of her foods by hand and in general, would refuse anything that I offered her on a spoon – opting to try it herself instead. At this point, we began to take the Baby-Led-Weaning approach more and more. By this I mean that we offered Lara a little bit of everything that we ate ourselves. This approach helps us a lot because it means we don’t have to cook a separate meal for Lara – we all share our family meals. Lara is one of few babies I know who was weaned in quite such an adventurous manner. We have an adventurous repertoire of meals (largely involving curry, I might add) and Lara seems to enjoy them all. We’ve had our wobbles – Lara went through a period of turning her nose up at beef, and then at anything involving tomato. At present, she will start screaming if she just hears the word yoghurt.

Just because we took the BLW approach, doesn’t mean that I DIDN’T offer Lara pre-packaged baby foods. No. As someone who loves to cook, I also enjoy a good takeaway, or a lovely meal out – I use convenience foods for myself, and I also use them for Lara. We did try one or two products from free samples that I wasn’t wowed by. Jars were never my thing, much sloppier and blander than anything I made myself. We did try Organix baby foods which were fine for back-up foods but our favourite were Plum Baby which just seemed most similar to my home-made foods in texture and ingredients. As Lara became more proficient in finger foods, we also discovered a great range of toddler snacks on the market that she still enjoys.



At around 10 months old, I started to offer Lara cutlery for her to learn to use. At 17 months she still hasn’t quite mastered the art but is very proficient with a spoon, and a fork when she chooses to be. One of our best investments has been our Boots crockery sets. We have several of them now! Simple BPA-free bowls and plates which are sturdy and well-shaped to allow Lara to move the food around with her spoon and fork without getting it everywhere. You don’t need anything more fancy than this. We also love our Brother Max bowl as I can fill it full of food, snap the lid on and put it into Lara’s lunchbox.

At 1 year we introduced cow's milk. These days Lara eats the same meals as us. Despite my recent porridge rant, I'm not someone who monitors every single little thing that my child eats. I know that she gets a generally healthy diet made from fresh foods so I'm very relaxed when it comes to offering snacks or treats. I do have one or two rules that I try to stick to when making my own food - no added salt or sugar. I tend to add seasoning to a meal immediately before I serve it these days so that I can make sure Lara has her portion first - this also allows me to add more chilli powder to mummy and daddy's food at the last minute too.

Over the past few weeks and months we have had lots of opportunity to try our different toddler drinking cups and highchairs. Our weaning journey is nearly over. In the coming weeks we hope to move Lara out of the highchair and into a booster seat at our brand new dining room table. Within a couple of months I expect her to have mastered the art of cutlery and then after that… well, who knows? Maybe my job will be done? Or maybe Lara is saving her fussy-eater stage for when she is a bit older!



I’m certain that her adventurous and unlimited diet has contributed to Lara’s social skills. I know that I can take her to friends, family and restaurants and not have to worry about finding something for her to eat. Holidays and travel are so much easier now that I don’t have to take anything special for her to eat and drink. Lara enjoys mealtimes – they are a big part of our day that we love to share with her.

If you would like to learn a little more about weaning, take a look at all of the information available at Boots Parenting Club

What Highchair? 7 Highchairs Reviewed

Earlier this autumn, Lara and I were asked to help out with the testing for the annual Mother & Baby awards which will be announced at a glamourous awards ceremony tonight. Along with the other ladies from my NCT group, we tested out 4 highchairs. Since then we have also tried out 3 others; and so, having had experience with lots of different styles and brands of highchair, I thought I would share with you what I have learned.

The first thing I learned is that the choice of highchair is a very personal thing so the rankings I give below are my opinions only, not those of the other mums who tested with me .

Chicco Happy Snack
The Good Bits: It has a wonderful large tray and is easy to expand and collapse with a baby in your hand. It is very good value for money.
The Bad Bits: There are lots of food traps and the big storage area under the seat collects lumps of food and crumbs. Your child ends up sitting a long way from the table. The large tray is hard to store.
Price: £44.99 approx.
Buy From: The cheapest I found them this week were at Bambino Direct and Amazon
Rating: 7/10

Graco Contempo
The Good Bits: A good sized tray. Your child can sit very upright in it (we found this aids eating even from a young age) but there are extra levels of recline. When folded, it hardly takes up any room. The covers were very easy to wipe clean.
The Bad Bits: We didn't like the fixed-position bar between the legs as it made strapping in difficult. The straps had a slip-in part and a clip-together part which seems like a good idea but was actually difficult to use.
Price: £85.99 approx.
Buy From: The cheapest I found them this week were at Kiddies Kingdom and Amazon
Rating: 8/10

Cosatto 3 Sixti Spin
The Good Bits: It takes up little floor space so can remain fully assembled at all times. It looks stunning and Lara loved being in it. I liked being able to spin Lara all the way around to point towards me as I finished cooking dinner.
The Bad Bits: The gas lift didn't go quite high enough for a breakfast bar and the base prevented us getting the chair close to the table. The tray was unacceptably small – we couldn't even fit Lara's plastic plates on it.
Price: around £150
Buy From: The cheapest I found them this week were at Bambino Direct but you can also buy on Amazon
Rating: 6/10

Mamas and Papas Loop
The Good Bits: The only highchair I've tried in which Lara can sit up at the breakfast bar to enjoy her meals with us. The gas lift and tilt are brilliant and I can imaging placing a very small child in it right up until they can sit unaided in a chair. The whole chair is easy to clean.
The Bad Bits: Takes up a lot of floor space and the tray, once again is simply too small – this one even struggles with bowls which is ridiculous for a product this expensive.
Price: £250 - £270
Buy From: The cheapest I found it this week was at Boots.com
Rating: 7/10

Stokke Tripp Trapp
The Good Bits: It looks great, is very sturdy and has a long lifetime to it (suitable right up to teenagers). If you use a Tripp Trapp right from the first weaning attempts, I'm sure your child would get the hang of sitting unaided soon.
The Bad Bits: At 13 months Lara was too big in the legs to get into the baby attachment and the straps offered little support. I had to sit her unaided but she was too wiggly as she wasn't used to it. The cushion and seat pad stained after just one spaghetti hoop incident and weren't easy to wash. I also struggle to understand why you would want to use a highchair beyond toddler-dom? With Stokke I think it's a case of 'love it' or 'hate it', a bit like Marmite.
Price: £120 - 140
Buy From: The cheapest I found them this week were at Bambino Direct and Kiddicare
Rating: 4/10

No Tray Highchair by Scandinavian Selection
The Good Bits: Simple. Easy to clean. Smart and no-nonsense. The seat is spacious. We reviewed it in more detail on Mellow Mummy.
The Bad Bits: The fixed height and lack of tray is a problem in our kitchen breakfast bar but will be better when we own a dining table. Some of the other children who tried it were very wiggly in in and wouldn't stay still.
Price: £75
Buy From: Buy online at John Lewis, Amazon or more
Rating: 8/10

Baby Bjorn Appetite
The Good Bits: There are no annoying straps to fiddle with. The chair is extremely easy to use and is very compact when stored. The tray is nice and flat so easy to clean and put plates of different sizes on.
The Bad Bits: It is a fixed height and is very low (particularly when mummy and daddy are sitting at a breakfast bar). Lara is simply too big for it at 16 months. Her belly prevents the tray from clicking into place and when I force her into it her legs dangle bellow the footrests and she attempts to lift herself up and out which could topple it. More suited to a smaller child.
Price: £140 approx.
Buy From: The cheapest I found them this week were Amazon, Bambino Direct and Kiddicare
Rating: 5/10

The Sunday Review – Scandinavian Selection No-Tray Highchair

When I was first asked to review the Scandinavian Selection No-Tray Highchair I was a little taken aback. Why? Because it is a product with which I am already familiar. It's simple – it is exactly what I would draw if asked to draw a highchair. But then, as I sat there and pondered this, I realised that, in my recent baby-buying shopping sprees, I had never come across as highchair like it.

Highchairs these days are all-singing, all-dancing, but perhaps they don't need to be? The Scandinavian Selection highchair is widely used in restaurants and cafes across the UK including Pizza Express. If it's good enough for use in a restaurant, it must be suitable for use at home, right?



The No-Tray highchair is a great idea for encouraging your child to become part of the social occasion of mealtime. You child can sit right up close to the table – a tray puts distance between you and them. In the mellow household we have been looking for a wooden highchair for some time. Until now, it would have been no good for us as we have only had a breakfast bar; trust me, it is very hard trying to find a high-chair that is high enough for a child to eat at a breakfast bar. But thankfully we are on the move and when we have a dining table all of our own I want Lara to be able to sit with us at the table without a tray but with the support that a highchair offers.

I recently had the opportunity to try a Stokke Tripp Trapp. I wanted to love it, but I didn't. At £75 including delivery, the Scandinavian Selection No-Tray highchair is considerably cheaper than the Tripp Trapp. Because it doesn't try to be arty or clever, I found the Scandinavian Selection easier to construct, easier to get Lara in and out of, easier to clean and considerably safer for Lara to wriggle and squirm in to her heart's delight.



It is certainly a no-frills highchair. It is fixed height, with no tray, no padded cushion, no cup holder, no recline and no wheels. But to be very honest, I rarely use any of those features of a highchair and it means there are less parts to clean and less pieces to lose or break. Despite it's simplicity, the highchair is still stylish. Our version is made from plain birch with clear lacquer - I think it looks smart and stylish and perfect for our new home.

Lara loves sitting in the No-Tray Highchair. I think she really feels the freedom of it compared to her other highchairs. I sometimes worry that she wriggles about too much as the seat is very spacious. You can buy a safety harness to attach to the highchair but I think the real solution is to encourage your child to sit still and pay attention at meal times.

Image courtesy of PJP PR

The seat is firm and fixed and I think that I probably wouldn't have been able to use it with Lara when she first started weaning as it doesn't provide any support for babies who can't sit upright wholly unaided.

The No-Tray highchair has also been put through it's paces by two of my team of mummy testers.

Lucy (Mum to a 14 month old) said,

“We found the highchair easy to use. It's great that it comes up to the table, but it won't go under the table to get my son really close. We found that he was able to turn round in the highchair so I think it would work better with the harness.”

Hayley (Mum to a 16 month old) said,

“The Scandinavian Selection couldn't be easier to use and we found it really easy to clean. It's perfect for toddlers who are good at feeding themselves.”

The Scandinavian Selection No-Tray highchair comes in three different colours and can be bought online at their own website, Amazon or Jojo Maman Bebe.

Totseat Travel Highchair

Earlier this week I reviewed the Totseat travel highchair for the Family Panel reviews website. I wanted to let you all know about the review because I really feel that it is a little piece of genius and since I got it a few weeks ago it has come out with me wherever I go and has helped me (and other mums) out of complicated highchair situations!

Anyway, if you fancy reading the review, you can see it here where they also have a money-saving discount code.