melonkelli
10-08-2004, 07:44 PM
Reviewed by Kelli, September 2004
We responded to a request by Denise & Alan Fields in late August and were selected as reviewers of the EB Natural Wood High Chair. The following is our review after about a month of use.
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A STURDY WOODEN HIGH CHAIR WITH SOME NICE FEATURES.
The Eddie Bauer Natural Wood High chair is constructed mostly of wood (base and seat) with a plastic tray/restraint, nylon webbing restraint belt, and lightly padded fabric seat cover.
The chair has one seating position; there is no option for raising/lowering or reclining the chair. As our baby is 10 months old, he didn't need to recline to eat, so this was not an issue for us. We like having him at the table to eat with us, so we didn't need any adjustments to the height.
The height of the chair allows the chair to sit close to the table with the tray over the table. This allows baby to eat dinner with us at the table, which is appealing to our family.
The chair was arrived packaged in three parts: legs/base; seat; and tray. Placing the seat on top of the legs and tightening the screws, then sliding the tray into position only took a short amount of time.
The legs/base is wide and sturdy. The base itself is larger than the dining room chair that it replaced which resulted in mom stubbing her toes on the back legs several times.
The chair arrived with some glue on the front surface above the footrest. The glue peels off with some effort. One of the legs has some discolored wood, but it appears to be a purely cosmetic blemish. But, overall, the wood makes the high chair look like a nice piece of furniture rather than a folding chair.
The tray is made up of four parts: a "Snack Tray" attached to chair (the base of the "Snack Tray" is the divider which keeps the baby from sliding out of the bottom of the chair); the tray base which clips onto the arms of the chair; a tray insert which snaps into the tray base; and a pair of "parent trays" which swing out from the tray base. The best part about the tray: it can be adjusted with one hand.
The retracting "parent trays" hold baby food jars or other small items out of baby's reach. The tray insert is quite large and sets into the tray base very easily. More than once we forgot to replace the tray insert and fed baby from the tray base, which was easy to wipe clean but a pain to remove and take to the sink. The tray insert was easily removed by pulling up at the indentations, but hard for baby to dislodge. The tray is easy to clean by hand (if you have a large sink), and the tray insert is dishwasher safe on the top rack. Since our dishwasher's top rack wasn't large enough to contain the tray insert, we took a chance and put it in the bottom rack. There was a bit of warping, but nothing that didn't straighten out with use.
The nylon webbing restraints were hard to figure out, and hard to adjust when being worn. The three point restraints are attached to one point in the chair, and are made up of a center strap that goes between baby’s legs and two side straps which go around baby's waist and clip to the center strap. Adjustments can be made to the side straps only, so the center strap is sometimes loose. Adjusting the side straps was awkward as the plastic pieces were a tight fit to the nylon webbing.
The rear under seat storage compartment comes in handy for bibs and other small needed items that might be forgotten in getting baby to the table. The compartment is a shelf with three open sides, so not much is going to be contained in the compartment.
The brown fabric seat cover is lightly padded, so when our baby decides to bang his head against the back of the chair it can sound like he is really hurting himself. The fabric does not cover the side slats of the seat, so they tended to trap all kinds of dropped food. Once the cover was removed, mom had to spend time picking dried food out from between the slats--a better design might include fabric to cover the slats, or a smooth piece of wood rather than the slats on the side of the seat. A standard seat cover did not fit the seat well (had to be tucked through the slats in several places), but had to be used while the cover was in the wash--and hanging to dry.
The Eddie Bauer Natural Wood High Chair is a sturdy wooden chair which looks nice at the table. We like that it allows baby to sit at the table for meals. The large one-hand adjustable tray and storage compartment are plusses. On the minus side, the side slats are hard to clean, the cloth cover needs to be washed clean (rather than wiped as with vinyl), and the restraint belt is hard to use. The chair is a good match for our family, as indicated by our son's willingness to endure long evening meals by sitting patiently in the chair "eating" his dinner.
We responded to a request by Denise & Alan Fields in late August and were selected as reviewers of the EB Natural Wood High Chair. The following is our review after about a month of use.
--------------------
A STURDY WOODEN HIGH CHAIR WITH SOME NICE FEATURES.
The Eddie Bauer Natural Wood High chair is constructed mostly of wood (base and seat) with a plastic tray/restraint, nylon webbing restraint belt, and lightly padded fabric seat cover.
The chair has one seating position; there is no option for raising/lowering or reclining the chair. As our baby is 10 months old, he didn't need to recline to eat, so this was not an issue for us. We like having him at the table to eat with us, so we didn't need any adjustments to the height.
The height of the chair allows the chair to sit close to the table with the tray over the table. This allows baby to eat dinner with us at the table, which is appealing to our family.
The chair was arrived packaged in three parts: legs/base; seat; and tray. Placing the seat on top of the legs and tightening the screws, then sliding the tray into position only took a short amount of time.
The legs/base is wide and sturdy. The base itself is larger than the dining room chair that it replaced which resulted in mom stubbing her toes on the back legs several times.
The chair arrived with some glue on the front surface above the footrest. The glue peels off with some effort. One of the legs has some discolored wood, but it appears to be a purely cosmetic blemish. But, overall, the wood makes the high chair look like a nice piece of furniture rather than a folding chair.
The tray is made up of four parts: a "Snack Tray" attached to chair (the base of the "Snack Tray" is the divider which keeps the baby from sliding out of the bottom of the chair); the tray base which clips onto the arms of the chair; a tray insert which snaps into the tray base; and a pair of "parent trays" which swing out from the tray base. The best part about the tray: it can be adjusted with one hand.
The retracting "parent trays" hold baby food jars or other small items out of baby's reach. The tray insert is quite large and sets into the tray base very easily. More than once we forgot to replace the tray insert and fed baby from the tray base, which was easy to wipe clean but a pain to remove and take to the sink. The tray insert was easily removed by pulling up at the indentations, but hard for baby to dislodge. The tray is easy to clean by hand (if you have a large sink), and the tray insert is dishwasher safe on the top rack. Since our dishwasher's top rack wasn't large enough to contain the tray insert, we took a chance and put it in the bottom rack. There was a bit of warping, but nothing that didn't straighten out with use.
The nylon webbing restraints were hard to figure out, and hard to adjust when being worn. The three point restraints are attached to one point in the chair, and are made up of a center strap that goes between baby’s legs and two side straps which go around baby's waist and clip to the center strap. Adjustments can be made to the side straps only, so the center strap is sometimes loose. Adjusting the side straps was awkward as the plastic pieces were a tight fit to the nylon webbing.
The rear under seat storage compartment comes in handy for bibs and other small needed items that might be forgotten in getting baby to the table. The compartment is a shelf with three open sides, so not much is going to be contained in the compartment.
The brown fabric seat cover is lightly padded, so when our baby decides to bang his head against the back of the chair it can sound like he is really hurting himself. The fabric does not cover the side slats of the seat, so they tended to trap all kinds of dropped food. Once the cover was removed, mom had to spend time picking dried food out from between the slats--a better design might include fabric to cover the slats, or a smooth piece of wood rather than the slats on the side of the seat. A standard seat cover did not fit the seat well (had to be tucked through the slats in several places), but had to be used while the cover was in the wash--and hanging to dry.
The Eddie Bauer Natural Wood High Chair is a sturdy wooden chair which looks nice at the table. We like that it allows baby to sit at the table for meals. The large one-hand adjustable tray and storage compartment are plusses. On the minus side, the side slats are hard to clean, the cloth cover needs to be washed clean (rather than wiped as with vinyl), and the restraint belt is hard to use. The chair is a good match for our family, as indicated by our son's willingness to endure long evening meals by sitting patiently in the chair "eating" his dinner.