Is it worth buying the Ikea Antilop high chair?

Which high chair is best? Is the Ikea Antilop high chair worth buying? And can you get a food tray that fits the Ikea Antilop high chair?

This is one instance where I believe quite firmly that you don’t need to buy an expensive top-of-the-range item to get something that works perfectly. The Ikea Antilop high chair is excellent value for money at just £15 – it was £12 when we bougth it in 2018 – lasted our daughter a good year and a half or so (I can’t remember exactly how old she was when she stopped using a high chair, I think it was around two) and we had no complaints about it at all. What’s more, you can buy some accessories that make it the ideal chair for weaning and your child’s early stage meals.

The high chair itself is very functional – it’s not exactly pretty, but what you want when you have a baby who invariably gets messy when eating is something that is easy to clean – and where you can see if there are stains. Some of the high chairs on the market with patterned fabric make it a bit tricker to see if there are any marks that need cleaning up but with plain white plastic you can’t miss it! The chair has a seatbelt strap which is good especially when your child gets a bit older if they are minded to try to climb out, and the tray part has raised edges to prevent food being pushed straight onto the floor, I mean to avoid spills. The legs can be removed for easy storage or transport.

We also bought an inflatable cushion from Ikea, at £4 for the cushion and £4 for the cover which is sold separately. It is designed to fit in this high chair but will also fit in others – as it’s inflatable, it’s really easy to take in your bag for days out if you are using a high chair in a café or restaurant as it inflates in seconds. It’s particularly handy in the wooden high chairs you often get in cafes or pubs which are very large – when our daughter was small she would have slid straight out of one of these but the cushion kept her supported.

I also recommend if you have this high chair, buying this brilliant food tray for your child’s meal – made by a company called EasyMat, it is designed to fit the Ikea Antilop high chair exactly, and costs £16.99 on Amazon.

It has one large and two small compartments for your child’s meal, meaning you don’t need to put a bowl or plate in front of them – and since the mat sticks to the chair tray with suction pads, no more throwing their bowl or plate onto the floor! It is dishwasher safe and a genius idea.

All these items together were less than £40 – some high chairs on the market retail for twice that and there are some that are over the £100 mark. We were really happy with our purchase and got a lot of use out of it!