The Cosco Basic High Chair is one of those products that when you're in the store (either very pregnant or with a squalling newborn) that simply amazes. Simply is the key word. I paid about $20 for my high chair. It doesn't look like a flying saucer. It doesn't come with all the new, politically correct developmental toys attached. It's just a high chair, and isn't that what you really went to the store to buy in the first place?
The frame is made from ¾” metal tubing (I don’t know what kind of metal, but it’s not aluminum because magnets will stick to it.) It’s sturdy without being cumbersome. The tubing is painted white. The rest of the structural parts (the back support and footrest) are made from white molded plastic. The inserts for the back and bottom are foam-stuffed/padded vinyl. The print is generic baby jungle print. The High Chair has little rubber foot-pads to keep from scratching the hell out whatever floor you're trying not to mangle. If you use this on carpet, well, you deserve what you get.
The tray is also white molded plastic. It measures 19” X 9½” across the main eating area (not counting the elbow area) and has a nice ½” lip to help (nothing ever really works – they’re babies) keep food up with the child. It attaches securely to the frame with metal couplers(?) of the “button-out for removal, snap-in for dinner” variety.
Assembly was stupid-easy. I don’t remember if the High Chair came with destructions, but I don’t recall needing them. Phillips’ head and about ten minutes of your day gets you up and running.
It is exceptionally easy to clean. Just wipe it down when you're wiping off the table and the counters anyway. The strap is the “thread the crotch-piece through the two buckling waist-pieces” type. It adjusts from teeny-tiny baby to squirmy toddler. The strap comes off easily, and, since it is nylon, usually gets thrown in with the rest of my daughter’s wash.
The chair itself has survived being thrown down stairs, the intense heat/extreme cold of a two-and-a-half year stint in a storage unit, and being moved from house-to-house in badly packed U-Hauls (I’m sexist, and most men should not load moving trucks without supervision.). My now six-year-old daughter has even stood on the tray when it rested on the chair to reach a high shelf (whee, fun, and she weighed about thirty pounds at the time). I bought this chair in 1998, and it now serves perfectly for my two-year-old son.
It folds down (up?) compactly for easy storage or an extended trip. My daughter went to visit my best friend, “Aunt” Lori for a month in the summer of 1999, and while the High Chair would fit in the trunk of the 1976 Chevy Nova 4-door I had, it wouldn’t fit crosswise in the 1991 Isuzu Rodeo my then-boyfriend had. I took the air-conditioned, nice-stereo’d Rodeo anyway. I made that High Chair fit.
I don't know why someone would opt for a super-expensive, tricked-out, flying saucer of a high chair. I look at it this way: do you really want to train your kid that it’s okay to bring toys to a meal, and then have to break them of it later? Besides, all those other frivolous attachments and toys just look hard and time-consuming to clean. The Cosco Basic High Chair is all you need to raise a kid to eat at the table.
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