The day your little one decides not to sit in their high chair anymore is a dark day! No longer can you keep them strapped in at mealtimes nor can you make sure they are in the appropriate place at mealtimes. Believe me, it gets messy!

Alice took the decision to move to a toddler chair out of my hands when she was only 18 months old. On Christmas day no less.

We had cleared her highchair out the way to make space for all the dinner guests and when her own lunch was served she climbed up on to Molly’s toddler chair. She sat quite happily, albeit a touch wobbly, munching her roast potatoes and gravy.

The next day we bought her high chair back out and dear god all hell broke loose. She refused point blank to get in to it screaming and thrashing about. I had no idea why. I just couldn’t understand. It was only after a few more tries that I realised she wanted to sit on Molly’s toddler chair where she merrily wolfed down her food.

And that was that. Gone was the high chair and off we went to buy a second toddler chair.

I sorely wish I had purchased the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair. At the time I thought it was too expensive but in the long run it would have been a good purchase.

Instead we bought a cute little chair from Ikea once Molly was too big for the highchair and purchased the same one for Alice. They have been absolutely perfect.

We opted for the plastic Urban chair as it fitted in with the style of our other kitchen chairs.

It is the perfect height for the girls to sit on and easily reach the table without the need for cushions on our ‘grown ups’ chairs. Once we had them it made mealtimes so much easier as the girls were comfortable at the table and could sit and eat happily. They also sit on these to do crafts/playdoh/create general chaos.

They are very sturdy and the plastic is super easy to wipe clean all the inevitable spills.

When the girls were small they were a bit high for them to climb on to themselves but now they can get up and down without a problem. Alice often uses the cross bar as a helping hand.

They are very secure and never seem to wobble or topple over as our normal dining chairs have been known to do.

The only downside to the toddler chair when Alice was small was that she did take a few tumbles as if she fidgeted about she didn’t have any side bits to hold her in place. This is probably due to the fact that she moved to it at quite a young age. So just bear in mind that you may need to support your littles ones when they are small.

Has anyone else made the move from a highchair and what have you used?