Wooden High Chair Review: Comparison of the Svan, Stokke Tripp Trapp and the Keekaroo Height Right High Chairs

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I was not satisfied with my initial high chair purchase for my eldest son.  Despite my best efforts, I, like many parents-to-be, did not make the best baby gear choices with Boy Wonder No. 1.  And I mean really, how can one be expected to select all the right accoutrement, having never had a babe before?  Particularly given that most shortcomings aren’t apparent until the gear has been used, rendering it un-returnable?  While many people feel compelled to rationalize and justify their purchases, regardless of their dissatisfaction, I feel the need to rectify these situations.  And with a blog like this, why not?  Thank you, CraigsList, for making this possible.  Here I compare three modern-style wooden high chairs, including the Svan, the Stokke Tripp Trapp and the Keekaroo Height Right High Chair.

When I first started hunting for high Chairs, when the little man was around four months old, I quickly rejected all plastic options.  I like modern design and I love the look of the Boon Flair and the Bloom Nano, but neither of these options would meld as much as I’d have liked into my more transitional side of contemporary décor.  At the time, we lived in a 900 square foot bungalow, so I needed something compact, but I didn’t want anything that looked like Laura Ingalls could have slurped her supper in it, either.  

Svan High Chair

Enter the uber-elegant, ultra compact Svan High Chair ($260).  The first time I saw it in a local baby boutique, I asked if the floor model was smaller than the actual-sized High chair, because compared to the other chairs it was standing next to, it seemed tiny, like it wouldn’t even fit a real baby.  They laughed at my ignorance and assured me that despite its miniature proportions, it seated the under-three set very comfortably whilst leaving plenty of floor space in one’s kitchen.  I was sold, instantly.

In our Svan, we happily made our way through rice cereal, sweet potatoes, pears and other purees, but about the time we started on finger foods, while Huck was still raking rather than pinching, the Svan’s shortcomings became more apparent.  The Svan, as elegant and compact as it is, has roughly 25 nooks and crannies for mashed peas, potatoes, chunky dinner blends and banana remnants to hide, dry and cake in (I might be a little batty, but when I sold it on CraigsList this weekend, I actually felt the need to remove individual bolts and use a toothbrush and a toothpick to get into these crevices).  

The “wipe-able” fabric pad ($39.99) was thin and didn’t seem terribly comfortable for marathon lunch and dinner sessions, and, ultimately, did not come as clean as I would have liked when sponged off.  It faded and got a bit more pilled each of the 10 or so times I machine washed it.  The plastic tray was a nice addition, and easy to clean, but it did not completely cover the side rails (which chubby, grubby hands love to grab), necessitating a near-total wipe down of the chair almost every time it was used (roughly 5 times a day—fun).  Furthermore, its narrow width, a bonus for space-saving purposes, resulted in a lot of food on the floor (and consequently a chunkier dog and more wiping for me).  Because of all this wiping and cleaning, the finish, particularly on the footrest, started to show signs of mild water damage and could have used a bit of a sand down and re-finish.  After two years of use, it just seemed like a lot of work for a $300 price tag.

Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair

I love the Stokke Tripp Trapp chair—the design, the finish options, the fact that I would actually keep this chair around to sit on after the kids have gone off to college . . . In fact, I covet a friend’s Tripp Trapp, along with her vintage modern dinnerware and NotNeutral glassware, every time I visit her house, but I think my dear husband would have flipped his lid if I’d spent $400+ on a High chair after recently swapping out my high-end stroller.  To really make the Stokke Tripp Trapp ($265) work from the beginning, you need the baby set ($69.99) to support your babe’s trunk and I’m assuming you’re not the parent who would make his/her child sit on bare wood, so you also need at least one if not two chair cushions ($44).  Furthermore, I know myself well enough to tell you that I am constitutionally incapable of passing up an elegantly designed solution like the PlayTray, but at $89.99 (10 bucks shy of $100 for a piece of plastic!? Really?), that puts the purchase over the top for me, totaling out at about $465.  That, and I really, really didn’t want to deal with a fabric cushion again.  Finding a more affordable option with a sponge clean-able cushion that didn’t scrimp too much on quality and versatility didn’t turn out to be the impossible task I thought it would be, however.  

Keekaroo Height Right High Chair The Svan’s replacement was an unknown name to me when last year my mom replaced the papa-san monstrosity that all grandchildren dreaded sitting in at her mountain house, but I’ve fallen in serious like with the Keekaroo Height Right High Chair over the last several months of frequent/occasional use.  Last week I finally got around to selling the Svan on CraigsList to swap it out and I couldn’t be happier.  The Keekaroo has a good aesthetic, a latex-free molded matte vinyl cushion that’s super-duper comfortable, it cleans up spic n’ span, and is almost infinitely adjustable.   I purchased the chair with a comfort cushion in chocolate, to match Huck’s Keekaroo Café booster seat, and the removable tray for $250 out the door.  Is this a chair I will keep in the family, pass down the generations?  No, probably not, but I just couldn’t justify the expense of an heirloom for this purchase, particularly given that what I really wanted was the convenience of a wipe-able vinyl seat to make five of the 50 messes I clean up on a given day a little bit easier to manage.

– M.

See below for my side-by-side comparison.