Booster Seats & High Chairs

About

There comes a point where the high chair starts to feel like it's holding your toddler apart from everyone else. A high chair booster seat brings them up to the family table on a normal dining chair, which is usually what they've been asking for by climbing out of the other one. Knowing When Your Toddler Is Ready Most families make the move somewhere between one and two, though there's no schedule and no need to rush it. The signs are usually obvious enough: sitting steadily without support, showing real interest in what's on everyone else's plate, and starting to treat the high chair as something to escape from. Floor seats come earlier, propping a younger baby upright for supervised play or first tastes. Strap-on boosters come next, lifting a toddler onto a dining chair. Table-mounted seats clamp straight to the tabletop, which suits a small kitchen or a café. Plenty of families own two, one that lives at home and one that goes in the car. Checking It Suits Your Chairs and Table A booster seat for dining chair use needs a chair with a flat seat and a solid back, and the straps have to reach around both. Curved or upholstered chairs can be trickier, so measure your seat depth before ordering. Table-mounted seats need a solid tabletop of the right thickness with nothing underneath the edge blocking the clamp, which rules out most tables with an apron or a thick lip, and they aren't suited to glass or single-pedestal tables. Whichever type you choose, look for a harness rather than a lap strap alone, non-slip contact points, and a seat you can wipe out rather than pick crumbs from. A removable tray helps for the stage before they're eating off the table itself. The Case for Something That Travels A portable booster chair earns its keep the first time you visit family and there's nowhere safe to put your toddler. Grandparents get one to keep at their place, which saves carting it back and forth, and holiday houses almost never have anything suitable. A folding or stra