If you have a kid, your kid needs to eat and so you need a highchair. Sadly, most highchairs suck. The trays are hard to clean and get gross, or they are monstrously expensive and make preposterous claims (Really, Stokke Tripp Trapp chair? A grown kid is going to want to sit in this? Why? Why would they not just use a regular chair when they are able? Is it worth like, $200 extra dollars?), or they are just hideous (hi, IKEA Antilop).
If you are like most people and already have a dining chair, then you should skip the silly, space-hogging highchairs altogether, no matter how long they claim you can use them, and get this.
The My Little Seat Travel Highchair is easily the best $25 I’ve ever spent on Amazon. It’s a cloth highchair contraption that attaches securely to literally any chair with a back (we’ve used it on some really weird, design-y chairs and it still worked) and harnesses your child (minimum of 6 months) in and lifts them to the height of the table. It folds into a pouch for travel and is great for restaurants that don’t have highchairs.
Every time I’ve set it up in a restaurant, at least one person comes over to ask where I got it, tells me that they’re ordering one right then, or muses that they wish they had something like it when their kids were small. I’ve even bought them as gifts. We’ve used ours 100+ times, washed it in the washing machine and it’s still great.
Will your table get messy? Maybe, but it won’t be any grosser than the removable tray of a traditional highchair. If you’re that concerned about it, you could get these silicone mat things ( and contain the mess on your table but I think it’s just easier to use a regular wipeable placemat. If you insist on getting a regular, non-portable highchair, I recommend this one.
It’s used by restaurants, it’s indestructible, and there’s no gross tray to clean. We use it at home, but honestly, I wish I’d just waited and ordered the My Little Seat from the get-go.