Perego: Excellent chair, an engineering marvel. See RECALL INFORMATION for models pre-2000
Written: Oct 24 '01 (Updated Oct 24 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Features, ergonomics, safety
Cons: Price, Possible recall
The Bottom Line: Sometimes you get what you pay for.
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| gbraun's Full Review: Peg Perego Prima Pappa High Chair Roller |
We’re into our second child in this chair (#1 got bumped to a booster chair when #2 started taking rice cereal) and I simply love it. I honestly have not found a fault with this chair.
I want to begin by saying that I think the chair is on the expensive side, and that I would not repeat the purchase of our Perego stroller, but that I feel the Prima Pappa is worth every penny. I feel I need to begin this way, as I’m about to praise this chair highly, and feel I should qualify the tone of my review.
I’m a mechanical engineer, and the design and thought put into this chair delight me. Form should follow function, and in this case it admirably does so. I’ll try and discuss this on a feature by feature basis, with what I like about each.
One-handed tray removal (or mounting)
You have the ability to swing a dirty tray over to the sink with one hand while using your free hand to either: pick up the baby/toddler, wipe the face of the baby, take a dirty spoon out of their hand, balancing a bowl and cup… you get the idea. Don’t under-rate this feature.
Reclining seat
We have repeatedly used every one of the four reclining positions at various times. At the time of first solid feeding, the upright position made spoon-slurping too hard. For learning to hold a bottle, the full recline was great.
Height adjustment
The five heights for the seat bucket and tray range from down close to the floor to up at dining table level. At the top I can stand and whip a spoon into our baby’s mouth. At the bottom our older girl learned to climb in and buckle herself up. One click up and our baby can sit and watch her big sister playing at an activity table.
Audible click confirmations:
This actually is a feature. Anything you adjust clicks audibly when it has been set correctly in position. This includes the seat belts clips, the tray handle, the recliner, the riser clamps, and the base foldout. Life is complicated enough with an armful of baby and a bowl of mush in your hand; it’s a nice confirmation that eliminates the need for visual inspection or a tug-and-test approach.
Tray
The tray is wide, with a nice rim. It’ll hold a lot, and makes it so that a child really has to want to throw something off the tray before you’ll have a messy floor. It has two depth positions (how close the child’s chest (or tummy)) and flip up vertical for folding the chair up. I suppose this “vertical tray” adjustment is a bit finicky, but we honestly don’t care because the tray is on the floor leaning up against an end cupboard whenever the chair has no occupant.
Washability
Contrary to a couple of other opinions I’ve read, we’ve never thought of this chair as hard to clean. I’m guessing from what I’ve read, that the chair is available with some different fabric choices, and so I don’t know if our plastic covered seat cushion is common, but it should be. It does have a couple of creases, easily accessed when the pad’s removed or by pushing a washcloth in by hand, but it doesn’t absorb anything. Part of our routine as our first girl got older was to stand her up on the sheat and brush her down, as collecting stuff off the chair was easier than sweeping the kitchen floor (again).
Wheels
The wheels are quite small, and would probably annoy me on an uneven tiled surface, but we have linoleum in the kitchen. We roll our chair into in the dining room (across a little wood strip and onto some berber) on a daily basis though, and while we need to “boost” the chair over the threshold, the chair is sturdy enough to lean back with a well placed foot, or dragged while lifting on the tray. I think you could pick up the whole chair by reaching in and grasping the back edge of the tray (though I’m not sure why you’d want to).
Safety
The three-point harness (two side belts click into a receptacle on the “between the legs” belt) is quite capable. It’s very adjustable, does not loosen accidentally, and has the audible “clicks” when securing it. Although we discouraged the behaviour, I’ve seen our daughter and our friends son test the limits when the tray is off by throwing themselves forward with their legs spread. Not only did they not come out, but the chair didn’t pitch forward either (let me stress that this should be discouraged behaviour). Properly adjusted, this harness should prevent any child from wiggling free. With the tray on, even my daughter’s bad behaviour is completely curbed.
READ THIS RECALL INFORMATION
Available online at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission website:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml01/01192.html
“When the seat is reclined, the high chairs have a space between the armrest and backrest in which a child's head or arm can become entrapped. This can pose a risk of suffocation or injury to the heads or arms of young children.
“Peg Perego and CPSC have received 51 reports of entrapment when children placed their heads or arms in the space between the armrest and backrest. Two children suffered scratches to the head, one had a bruised arm, and another had a scratched arm. There have not been any reports of suffocation.”
Ours was one of the recalled chairs, produced between June 1996 and October 1999, distinguishable by the shorter 5” armrests, later replaced with 9” armrests.
It is my opinion that the only risk of serious injury with the recalled armrests would result from a body part being in the gap as the chair was brought back to upright, and that even so you’d have to be very careless to harm your baby this way..
If you already have one of these, go to perego.com (or pegpergo.on.ca if you’re in Canada) and they will immediately ship out replacement armrests, with easy instructions. Customer service was excellent here in Canada, and it really is just a 2-second, no tools required, job. If you’re shopping for this high chair now, it’s unlikely you’d be affected by such old stock, but maybe you should check the CPSC website any way, as it has good pictures to accompany the description.
Summing it up
If I were to try and find anything else negative to say, it could only be that this chair does not fold up sufficiently compactly to allow us to bring it along with us when we’re visiting; but then I don’t know of a chair (anywhere near as good as this one) that does.
While I don’t endorse Perego products across the board, I have no reservations in recommending this one; the quality justifies the price, and results in good value.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
gbraun
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Location: Cambridge, ON, Canada
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 14 members
About Me:
"I think not," said Descartes, and promptly disappeared.
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