How to Choose a High Chair For Baby Led Weaning?

Are you in your baby starting the baby-led weaning journey but don’t know what kind of highchair to get? in this article I’ll tell you how to choose a high chair for baby Led Weaning.

The main things you’ll want to look for before purchasing a highchair baby-led weaning basically means that you skip the part where your spoon-feed purees and allow your baby to feed themselves using their hands usually it’s recommended to start around 6 months or when they show signs that they are developmentally ready.

The main things you’ll want to look forward to before you start is that your child is able to sit unassisted and that they have grown out at a tongue thrust reflex in which they just push foreign objects out of their mouth.

If you’re planning to start baby-led weaning I find that there are four main points you want to consider before purchasing a high chair for your baby.

1. Easy to clean:

The first thing you want to look for and something I consider fairly important is that you want to look for a high chair that is easy to clean. I’m not going to lie to you baby-led weaning is messy I can’t stress this enough as there’s something you’ll be cleaning maybe three times a day seven days a week.

So look for materials that are easy to clean like plastic or wood and stay away from fabrics also will be nice if the seating area is one solid piece without any crevices or creases for food to get lodged in a huge bonus would be that the harness is removable and machine washable. 

2. Adjustable Footrests:

The second thing is to look for is Adjustable Footrests baby’s feet to be able to reach the footrest as it provides them with stability and this makes it easier for them to lean forward just think about it when you eat we don’t usually lean back and eat our food we can just lean right above our food and eat.

3. Longevity:

The third thing to look for is longevity. you want a high jet that will grow with the baby and hopefully last time at least a couple of years.

If not more this means the seat will need to be highly adjustable or convertible and the reason you want this is because you’re gonna be spending quite a bit of money on a high chair you want to make sure it lasts a long time.

4. Easy pull up to Table:

The fourth thing to look for is that the high chair can easily be pulled up to your dining table or as close as possible. Part of baby-led weaning is introducing family meals to your baby so everyone sits together and eats together.

Also Read: Best High Chair For Baby Led Weaning – Our Top Picks

The Reason Why High Chairs are Important For Baby :

we’re going to be covering why high chairs are important For babies so let’s break down three critical reasons why your little one’s seating is so important.

1. Comfort:

The first major reason why seating is so important it’s because of comfort and really we take for granted comfort during Meal Time as adults because if we’re not comfortable we’re probably not gonna sit for that long to enjoy our meal.

I like to give the example of you know imagine that you got invited to eat a five-course meal but the caveat was that you had to sit on a barstool for the entire time and you know if I course meal goes I don’t know an hour two hours maybe even three if you’re a super slow eater.

We would get tired right like if you didn’t have anywhere to place your feet on that barstool you would be seeking stability we would be like leaning over on the bar or maybe trying to put our feet up on a wall whatever we could find our back would get tired from trying to sit upright for a long period of time.

That we’re not used to sitting, for now, this seems going to be true for our little ones you know they are just now the strength in there and their tummy muscles and their back muscles to actually sit up and so it’s new for them for us to ask them to sit still for 15-20 minutes and then try and eat so we want to make sure that our baby is comfortable.

2. Adequate Support:

If we’re expecting our little ones to build the endurance and the strength to sit for an entire meal you know and practice the skills of picking food up and bringing it to their mouth.

We really need to give them support as I mentioned before you know this is a brand new task that they’re doing they’ve just probably developed the muscle strength to even get into the upright position so again we want to make sure that they’re not fatiguing halfway through their meal.

Because what happens is if they’re fatiguing halfway through their meal they’re not gonna be able to refine those fine motor skills using their fingers to pick up the pieces of food and to bring it to their mouth.

3. Proper Positioning:

The final reason why your little one seating is so important is that they need to be positioned properly now in order to get the comfort and the support that we talked about earlier.

Your little one needs to be positioned properly in their high chair or seating arrangement. But essentially what we want is our baby to be positioned at 90 degrees at the hips 90 degrees at the knees and 90 degrees at the ankles.

These angles are gonna provide the stability that your little one needs to sit and build the endurance for an entire mealtime sitting as well as giving them the best chance to maintain a safe position while practicing a new skill of bringing food to their mouth and managing it and safely swallowing it all.