If you’ve ever looked into buying a baby product from the company Stokke, you will know how evangelical they can be. Their Xplory pushchairs “develop social as well as learning skills,” while their Sleepi cot ensures “the right environment, mood, and space” for your baby to sleep in. It almost makes you feel like a crack-whore parent if you don’t follow the guiding principles of their products.

Stokke’s Tripp Trapp highchair is another prime example. “Your child learns from watching, observing, and interacting with you. The single and most natural place for this interaction is around the family table.” Therefore, Stokke concludes, to make your little boy eat from a highchair with a tray would be as irresponsible as giving him a box of matches and some fireworks.

Clearly, the folk at Stokke have never had children themselves, because if they had they would realise that sitting your 10 month old baby at the family table for dinner is only going to get your walls daubed with peanut butter and your carpets stained with spaghetti sauce. So for those of us in the real world who still really like the flexibility of Stokke’s Tripp Trapp highchair, but value their soft furnishings, here are the options for trays that attach to the Tripp Tripp.

ergo:design Clic Clac Tray (around £40)

Not easy to get hold of in the UK, the Clic Clic has a wooden design that blends in nicely with the Tripp Tripp. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lip around the edge so any spillages will just dribble off the edge. Kind of pointless, then.

Kidzmix Sloppi Tray (price unknown)

The Sloppi is also wooden, but has the added benefit of a lip to contain spills. It is also handmade in the UK, so what more could you ask for? Well a website that isn’t devoid of information would be a good start. It would also be nice to have a contact e-mail address that actually works. If you want to buy this tray you’ll soon realise that you can’t, no matter how hard you try.

Stokke Table Top (around £45)

I should add that Stokke do make a ‘tray’ but it is designed to be attached to your table, not clipped on to the Tripp Trapp itself. One problem is the fact that it needs to connect directly to the table itself via suction cups, so you can forget using a tablecloth to protect the surface. It is also easy for a baby to remove by grabbing the edges and sliding it about (Henry particularly enjoyed doing this). So for babies it is definitely not a solution, but for older children who can be trusted a little more then it might be OK.

4mykid Playtray (£49 from Playtray.co.uk)

This is my solution of choice. The Danish company 4mykid has designed a really simple tray that attaches easily to the Tripp Trapp, has a huge lip to gather spills, and wipes down incredibly easily. The only downside is that it is plastic instead of the Tripp Trapp’s native wooden finish, but it actually looks pretty cool once attached. Henry and I have bought a Playtray and we’ll give you our full review shortly.

This entry was posted on August 1st, 2009 by Craig Alan Williamson
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