Totseat review: the best travel highchair
More and more places seem to have worked out that offering highchairs is a good move – it’s pretty simple: give parents somewhere to put their babies where they can eat, play, watch etc and the grown-ups will stay and eat, drink and generally be merry.
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Unfortunately, as high chairs (and babies) come in a variety of different shapes and sizes, they aren’t always suitable – which brings us on to my Totseat review for those days where there’s no baby facilities or they simply aren’t right.
Even at eight months, Minnie tends to either slide her bum gracefully forwards until she’s very uncomfortable indeed if there are no shoulder straps, or do her best to fold forwards, occasionally headbutting bits of chair on the way.
And while I have once fed her one-handed while standing and holding her on my hip (a particularly grouchy teething day when nothing pleased her), neither of us had much fun and my left bicep is now probably twice the size of my right.
But if I had to schedule trips and travel around having her meals at home, we’d only ever have a couple of hours out – or I’d have to carry a high chair with me. Very practical.
As ever, someone has come up with a solution. A few friends, and the unbiased reviewers at Which?, had all highly recommended the Totseat, who very helpfully sent one for me to test out and review.
Made from a single material harness in some very funky prints – mine is brightly coloured Tapas, although there’s unisex and even personalised denim versions as well as fruit designs – it hooks securely over every chair, with a separate supportive cummerbund for backless seats.
The front section goes under the baby’s arms, then clips behind the seat back, and you can adjust it to help keep them supported as well as shortening the length for low backed chairs. We tried it on a series of styles, in airports, homes and cafes, and it keeps its promise to fit every single one, whatever shape or size they were.
The only times it didn’t work as well were on shiny slippy wooden chairs, as Minnie (just eight months at the time) would start to slither forward, and while the Totseat safely stopped her falling, it wasn’t desperately comfy.
[EDIT: Top tip from the lovely people at Totseat – if you’ve got an equally wriggly slidey baby, try wrapping the cummerbund around them and the Totseat once you’ve strapped them in as normal. It’s wide fabric so not uncomfortable, and just gives a bit of extra support if you need it – a perfect solution for us].
Older (or less wriggly) babies who can sit up even more confidently on their own probably wouldn’t have this issue, and the makers do state it’s for those who can sit unaided (around eight months) so it’s not suitable for a wobbly six-month-old for example.
Anything seat with a bit of grip, especially leather, fabric or even textured plastic, and she was fine.
It also promises to be washable, squashable and portable, and entirely lives up to its end of the bargain there too. Squishing down into a drawstring bag, it fits easily into a change bag (or can live in a car boot or buggy) and if you’ve got big pockets you could potentially stuff it in as it weighs practically nothing.
Then you can throw it into the machine to de-gunk it without any hassle after it’s been treated to the full dribbling, gummy, raspberry-blowing lunchtime experience. Plus there’s even a lifetime guarantee.
Priced from around £30, it’s easily one of the most useful and very far from the most expensive piece of baby paraphernalia I’ve bought.
After watching Minnie in puree-gobbling action on our first long-haul holiday, the childminder having her lunch in the Minnesota Science Museum café agreed wholeheartedly, even coming over to find out where we’d bought it and whether she could get one too. Happily, as I raved about my discovery, I could tell here that she could too, as there are international stockists all over the place).
[UPDATED: We carried this with us around the UK and around the world until we were beyond the highchair stage – even when she wasn’t eating, it came in useful to get her out of the buggy and sitting with us at the table. For once, a baby travel essential which is truly essential)
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission. My Totseat was free for the purposes of review but all opinions are my own
I had one for my son and it was fabulous when travelling. However it does have on drawback being material it can easily get coated in food esp yoghurt. If the day you are flying or travelling it means taking a wet bit of material with you or smelly food. I found as he got to around 1 year I needed to wash it after nearly every use. Would still highly recommend for travelling.
I can imagine when she’s old enough to wrestle the spoon off me, it will need more care – even now the chance to blow raspberries with a mouthful of fruit is evidently very tempting. But having it to hand (or stuffed in a bag), especially when I’m not sure what other options there will be, has been fantastic.