I know that this is a gross oversimplification of the topic, but keeping Claire a breast-fed baby has been a rather easy task for me.
All of you women who got riled up just reading that? Humor me for a moment.
Put aside all of the high level stuff that makes breastfeeding a hot topic in some circles and look at it simply as a part of Things You Have To Do Today.
There's nothing to purchase, prepare, heat up, serve, clean up or wash. (As if I need ANOTHER damn thing to do anyway.)
And you know what? I'm lazy. Lazy as all hell. I had just given birth and doing dishes sounded kind of like another circle of hell. I was all, "You mean I can just sit here and watch TV and feed the baby? And that will make her stop crying right away? Sweet. Sign me up."
Even if I wanted to skip one of those night feedings and just have Chris give her a bottle so I could snooze more than 4 hours at a time? Our house isn't a mansion and if Claire is crying EVERYONE CAN HEAR IT. She sleeps less than ten feet from our door.
I'd have to listen to her whimper and scream while a bottle was prepared at 2 am and I'd be awake the entire time, tortured by her pathetic wails, and probably end up washing that bottle in the morning and DAMMIT JUST LET ME FEED HER IT WILL ONLY TAKE TEN MINUTES AND THEN WE CAN ALL GO BACK TO BED.
Bottle feeding was, for us, something that always seemed waaaaaay more complicated than it needed to be. And I know that it's not that way for everyone, for a variety of reasons and that is just fine. JUST FINE! I don't know why some people insist on making women feel guilty one way or the other but I am NOT one of those pot-banging ladies. This recent article in Atlantic Monthly brings up some really great points about the dubious science behind why it's so awesome anyway. (Go on, read it - it's such a refreshing look at the topic.)
But you know what? We are not getting into a discourse on Formula Versus Breast today. We are so not getting on that high and mighty horse.
We are talking about the vast and mysterious world of Solid Foods and how oh-so-different it is going to be for me from nursing a teeny tiny blob of a baby. Only a handful of tries with rice cereal and it's clear that this is going to be messy and complicated. If I thought a little spit up was reason to fret? Oh man, I had NO IDEA.
Solid foods are a gigantic mess when someone who is still fine-tuning her motor skills wants to test out those skills on a spoon of sticky goop and then see what it feels like to put the goop on her forehead. And her leg. And on her chair. And then on YOUR face. (The answer? STICKY! Amazing! Now let's take a bath. )
She's rapidly approaching 6 months of age and I've been reading up. There are no fewer than thirty ba-million ways to introduce your kid to solid foods and all have varying degrees of "If you don't give your kids peas by week 36 he'll be screwed up forever and require therapy," and "Whatevs. It's cool if she only wants bananas and avocados. Mushed together. Every meal. For a year." (Ew.)
Firstly, it's clear we will be needing a high chair of some sort. This is unfortunate as I pretty much view high chairs as abominations of furniture and I was hoping to avoid one altogether. I have a Stokke Tripp-Trapp. It is from the early 80's and I used it as a child. In fact, there are THREE of these in my family that my brother and I both used throughout the 80's.
(We were trendsetters.)
(Actually, no we were not. Our grandmother just liked modern furniture and felt that we needed them.)
(Her house looks like Mad Men. The office, not Betty Draper's house.)
(I am not making this up. In fact, am planning a post on the striking similarities of my grandmother's house and Don Draper's office. Stay tuned.)
Unfortunately, the old-school Tripp-Trapp is made for a child 18 months and older. Not a baby. They make a Tripp-Trapp today for a baby, but it costs, uh, lots of money. I'm not too keen on paying $300 for something that essentially only has a one year usefulness before the chair I ALREADY HAVE can be used.
Just....no.
To Amazon I went.
And oh lord. The ugliness. The bulk. The plastic. The colors. The...prices. MON DIEU - Do you know how much high chairs are? The decent ones are like, a hundred bucks! And, by "decent" I mean the ones that you can clean easily - which is like, the MAIN FUNCTION of a high chair.
And the reviews, which are usually helpful at Amazon? Dude. These parents are tough. Nobody seems to like anything. Even when they give it 5 stars.
This person gave a chair 4 out of 5 stars, But it sounds like she totally hates the chair! She even calls the toy lame because her child is likely too young to reach it. Which, um, won't he grow a bit and be able to play with the toy one day? Is this really a problem with the chair?
This is the only high chair I've used, but I'm quite happy with it. I have two complaints about it. The first is the fabric piping on the vinyl seat. The vinyl seat can be wiped off, but the piping on the seat needs to be washed. My second complaint is the price. Fisher Price makes a similar model that costs $40 less. The toy is pretty lame. My son can't even reach any of the spinny things on it. I would buy the cheaper model if I were to buy another one. (I think the cheaper one doesn't have the fabric piping.)
Or look at this one. She's basically saying this chair isn't for fat babies. Is my child chubby? HOW TO TELL? I thought every kid had delicious baby thighs. Are my baby's thighs TOO delicious? And don't most of the trays adjust OUT as well, making the whole point moot?
If your child quite skinny, no problem. But if normal or chubby, the tray will likely push against their ribs as they get up to 10+ months old.
This guy just blamed the entire thing on his wife. Nice job dude. Also, everything on his con list is pretty much a con of the entire high chair category. Did he not know what a high chair was before his wife bought one? And why is HE writing the review and throwing his wife under the bus? Does she know she's being trashed on Amazon for her pattern choice?
Pros:
Vinyl is easy to wipe down
Trays can be pulled off and wiped down easily too
Tray actually ensures child is secured in, with the addition of the straps gives you peace of mind
Chair can grow with your child
Can be folded - but I never do this!
Cons:
Stuff can get tucked away in crevices and tricky to get out and clean
Graphic design is awful! (blame my wife - she picked it!)
Wheels don't move well on carpet [Dude, why are you feeding your kid on carpet?]
Its big!
We ended up getting a Chicco Polly. It's big. It's overly bright. It was more than $100. It was everything I didn't want in a highchair.
But it folds up nice and skinny. And with my tiny kitchen that was what sold me. Claire seems to dig it. Right now she's just playing with toys on the tray while we do things in the kitchen and she likes being up high and able to see what's going on.
I think I'm ready for this messy adventure of pureed fruits and vegetables now. The days of the neat and tidy ten minute feeding are so O-V-E-R.
