Hi all

with everything else going on I hardly like to ask such a banal question, but we have 7 month old twins who are sort of mostly BLW, ie they feed themselves bits of stuff off a tray.

we have 2 sets of wonderful parents, who are only too happy to feed our family of 5 once a week or more (YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!). But while each set has one highchair, from previous grandchildren including our first, neither has two, nor could reasonably be expected to store two. also, both of the available high chairs are kind of terrifying deathtraps.

so...how the heck do we feed the babies?

Many times we have fed them with one on our laps. This is not much fun. also explosively messy. also very hard to eat own dinner with this going on.

A few times we have taken our classy IKEA antilop highchairs to their houses. excellent to have but big hassle to pack and move. we have the requisite enormous car for 3 x kids in baby seats (Kluger), but we can't exactly buy extra high chairs and leave them folded in the boot at all times.

We have those tie on fabric chair inflatable things from tour first kid, but frankly did not find them much use with small babies.

A few times we have fed the babies in the pram. that's OK at a cafe or whatever for a small meal, but a nightmare for dinner, and anyway they can't then pick up food themselves as they wish, so it's all a hovering exercise, and twin 2 HATES HATES HATES being spoon fed (he is generally mild mannered, but is all revolted dignity when you jam a spoon in his mouth), and they keep whacking each other with their food and/or food covered hands.

As far as I can tell, the options are:
(a) buy at least 2 more full sized high chairs and secrete them at each set of parents' houses. annoying for them to store and probably not so thrifty for us, even if I haunt ebay, an excellent survival skill for the twin parent
(b) get some sort of clip on thingummy x 2 a la the Phil and Ted MeToo, or there are also some terrifyingly expensive Chicco models. These could be left in the car or stroller or whatever and used wherever we needed them.
© get a hard plastic portable booster chair with tray we could tie onto chairs elsewhere, and leave in the car etc per above. I am not so keen on these though.

What do you do when you need to feed your babies at someone else's house, without highchair facilities? if you go the clip on approach or booster chair, which model would you recommend?

Has anyone any other ideas, other than never going out to eat? hard to knock back free food we don't have to cook

Loz

What about a bumbo with a tray? Thats what we are planning to use for our twinnies

Hi Loze. We have 2 boys, 13 mths apart.

We use the Fisher-Price Healthy Care Boosters for both. We stopped using our highchair at around 5 months with each boy.

Here is a link http://www.crazysales.com.au/fisher-price-...oster-seat.html although you can pick them up on sale at bigw and target sometimes, they are sometimes rainforest ones with detachable toys as well.

Anyways, they are the BEST, better than highchairs they are easy to clean and very transportable! Our oldest still uses his and he is 3 as you can lower them according to their height! Oh and I also love them because they can be seated at the table with the rest of the family! (boy 1 didnt like the tray so was at the table early on, boy 2 liked the tray was the opposite!). Love love love ours!

Best of luck!

DYE

ETA: re the bumbo, I did look into them but they have skinny leg holes on them and as far as I could tell you cant secure them to a chair...or use them all the way up into toodler-hood - but I could be wrong...

I dont have a high chair at all, I bought this fisher and price hard plastic portable highchair/booster seat thing. It has a tray and everyhing, and you clip it around any dining room chair. Its pretty portable and very easy to clip on/off.

http://www.productreview.com.au/p/fisher-p...are-deluxe.html <- thats the one. I would totally recommend it

ETA but we cant use it with the covers on the tray bit because bubs manages to pull them off pretty easily. Was about $80 from memory

ETA again: Looks like we had the same idea dryyoureyes

Have you tried a Bumbo with the tray attachment? http://www.bumbo.com.au/

I was coming in to suggest IKEA Antilop They are probably the cheapest option. If you don't bother with trays they can just push up to the table and I've always found them very easy to dismantle and transport/store (maybe they've changed since I got mine though?)

I got a plastic booster chair years ago and hardly used it, not that easy to fit onto all chairs and quite bulky. Some of those fabric ones look good though... or, if the grandparents have an appropriate table, those ones that mount directly onto the table are quite compact (no idea what they cost though).

ETA Just saw the Bumbo suggestion. Sooooo wanted those when I had twin babies but didn't discover them until the babies were almost past them.

Hi,

We usually take an antilop Ikea chair with us, and do them one at a time if necessary. Although my parents have two high chairs which is good.

I second the PP above, those FP booster type ones are really good, thats all we used for DD1, light, pack away easy and pretty cheap. I'm thinking I might two of these myself, as taking the legs off the Ikea chair is fine, but would be easier if we didn't have to.

Mine are 13 months (today!!) and they can now crawl straight out of the bumbo or tip it over, so no good anymore, and I always found the tray so difficult to attach.

Good luck

I think your cheapest option is to buy an extra Antilop chair or 4 and just leave them at the respective Gparents house.

You may even find the second hand via eBay or Gumtree and they wouldn't be dear since they aren't i the first place

With our twins, when we were short a highchair (eg someone else's house) we would feed one of them in those baby "bouncy" chairs - you know the things they make for youger babies to sit around in. Do your parents have a spare one of these? If you are worried about food getting all over it you can cover it with a bath towel before putting baby in. It only really works if you are on your knees beside it spooning food into the child's mouth though. Alternatively you can sit it beside you and pass down finger food, one handful at a time. Not ideal I know, but you can probably get through a meal alternating between that and sitting the child on your lap.
Otherwise what about wheeling the stroller into the house and letting them eat in that?
You can get really cheap high-chairs from garage sales or Vinnies (cheaper than ebay usually) or even have a scout around a council cleanup - something like the Ikea one left out on a curb is very easy to clean up and not likely to be unsafe as you can see pretty clearly all the bits and there are no mechanics or anything involved.

Bumbos alas not much good, and ditto rockers (which I have used as well) as we are talking a family meal, everyone at the table type thing. I do feed the babies lunch when noone else is eating, but they have breakfast and dinner with us, which is important to me.

Stroller/pram also not much good for the reasons above. One baby doesn't tolerate spoon feeding, and both of them end up covering each other with food if they sit so close together.

Those booster seat recommendations look great! and probably I suppose less fuss than a hook on job, and less likely to damage the table too.

Now I just have to work out if it's feasible to occupy 2 x chairs at the table at my in-laws' house, where we often have 10+ at a meal, not including the twins!

I might also keep my eye out for some more antilops. They really are an awesome chair. for everything except tripping me over, which I do every.freaking.day.

I trip over our ikea high chair most days too!

Antilop stack, don't they? So storing two takes the same space as storing one.

These fold very thin/flat, maybe an option?
http://www.ikea.com/au/en/catalog/products/90157930

Folded photo (scroll down)
http://pregnancyandbaby.sheknows.com/blog/...ling-highchair/

oooooo.... those chairs do fold so flat!!

We have to move into a smaller place (finances require it) at the end of this lease and I have been mentally calculating what of the twins stuff will need to go...

oooooo.... those chairs do fold so flat!!

We have to move into a smaller place (finances require it) at the end of this lease and I have been mentally calculating what of the twins stuff will need to go...

Im about to get rid of my 2 antilops if you decide to go down that path but i doubt you are in Brisbane... PM me if you are and are interested... We use some Childcare "Fizz" i think they are called? at my parents house, mum bought them. They are a bit like a fancy antilop, quite stackable. We are moving in with them, so cant justify having 4 highchairs floating around. And since mums are fancy-er, we are sticking with them.

We have the fisher price rainforest ones - I use them on the floor at home and they fold reasonably small for when we go away/out. I found mine were out of Bumbos by 6ish months - Scarlett could throw herself around and out - rat.

sorry this is quick... [kids snoozing] ..... we have 2 of the clip onto seat type. they are first years ones. they are from kmart and were $29 on sale. i think they are normally $39. the tray clips off and the seat can go to three different heights. we ditched our other highchairs and just have these at home. we take them out to nan and pas place or if we go for dinner. we think they are pretty good for the money. do the job!