Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am the voice of reason and experience. Listen to me. This chair is the coolest looking baby chair out there. With the red seat cover/pad it matches the Saarinen Tulip Chairs in our kitchen perfectly. That is exactly where the awesome ends. I consider myself a neat-freak bordering on OCD. Call it a quirk. Call it a super power. Either way, it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep this chair clean. There are more nooks and crannies than you can possibly imagine. Even the screws that hold the thing together are recessed in DEEP narrow holes that suck up food and crumbs like a hungry Sarlac. You have to use a bottle brush and plenty of soap and water to break up and dissolve whatever falls in there (the holes are around two inches deep), and then vacuum it out with an attachment. This is just ONE of the "special" little places that hold food (well, four of the places, but just one *kind*). The shoulder straps collect food that cannot be washed out. Anything mashed our pureed becomes embedded deep in the weave, and you WON'T be able to get it out without some serious steaming, scrubbing, and screaming. One day I got really frustrated and realized those straps serve no purpose once your baby is big enough to sit up, so I burned them in a fit of rage and catharsis (the shoulder straps, not the seat straps). When you use the "nest" (it's the booster seat --don't ask me why they call it a "nest" --you curl up in a nest, you don't sit on top of it), tons of food falls down between the booster, the seat cover and the chair (not only between the seat cover and the booster, but actually UNDERNEATH the booster... and then becomes embedded in the GIANT patch of velcro under there). You won't BELIEVE how much food collects in that invisible location. Not only that, but getting the booster seat out to clean underneath it and around it is a month long process (seriously, there are more things to unfasten, unthread, and undo than should be legal). Taking this chair apart to do a "simple" wipe down is NOWHERE NEAR simple. There are straps that must be threaded through the booster, the seat cover, and then into the back of the chair. There are latches and hooks and sliders and whatsits and whosenots and gizmos galore. It's a nightmare. There are extra parts. Lots of extra parts for various stages of the game. Some of them fit in the "handy" little compartment in the back of the chair (which can only be accessed by removing the straps AND the seat pad to get at it --why did they put the compartment on the INSIDE instead of the OUTSIDE?!). The rest of the extra parts WILL become lost (because of my super neurotic super power, I had the foresight to place these little extras in a bag in a place where I would remember --but keeping all these things wrangled for specifics moments in your child's growth evolution will prove a massive undertaking). I did like the ability to use the chair as a bassinet when the baby was tiny. However, that function doesn't last for long, and when it comes time to tilt the chair... beware the fury. It doesn't lock properly, it sticks, there are weird "in-between" locations, there is a danger of smashing your child's legs with the safety bar, etc. Also, good luck finding (and remembering) the right switch or lever for the function you want. I have been living in constant fear that one day I'll hit the wrong switch and my sweet baby boy will go flying through the kitchen ceiling like an unwanted Bond villain. The chair is supposed to grow with your child. Our kiddo is now almost two. I have tried taking the booster seat out three different times over the past three months. Each time I thought, "he's tall enough to do without the booster now!" Each time I was wrong. Here's the thing: his legs currently BARELY fit underneath the safety bar (between the safety bar and the booster). You'd think this was a CLEAR indicator that it's time to lose the booster. However, when I took it out, he had to eat with his hands over his head like an orangutan (the tray is still WAY too high). There is no good in-between stage. The seat "growing with your child" is an awesome idea, but Bloom has failed to implement it in a functional way. Believe it or not, there are actually many, MANY more things to complain about with this chair, but to be frank, I'm tired of documenting just HOW MANY ways this chair fails. If you aren't going to heed my warnings by this point, it's not likely that you'll listen to anything I have to say anyway, so you deserve what you get if you purchase this chair. If looks take precedent over function in your household (which I can totally understand), that's fine, but you have been warned.