IKEA ANTILOP Highchair Review

During my pregnancy we bought A Lot Of Stuff. In the interests of not allowing our home to be completely taken over by various baby accessories, we decided to wait until we actually needed one before purchasing a highchair. This bought us six months thinking time! I've found that pretty much everything you buy for your baby needs some serious research, I could probably do a PHD in baby products now but that's another story...
Anyway. After a quick Internet search it was confirmed that as is usual with baby products, there is a ridiculous amount of choice when it comes to highchairs! I had to decide what I really wanted from a highchair and at the top of my list was: Easy to clean. This really needs no explanation - weaning is pretty much guaranteed to be super messy so I didn't want to spend hours trying to scrub mushed up broccoli out of the seat.
After reading many, many online reviews of highchairs, I kept coming back to the ANTILOP from IKEA. Now, this is as basic a highchair as you are likely to find so is definitely not for those who want something pretty. But it is amazing if, like me, you want an easy clean product!
Apparently this highchair is often used by restaurants so it is likely that your child may already have sat in one. In fact, before we bought ours, Sophia had trialled an ANTILOP on a day out at the Manchester Museum.
We are fortunate to live near an IKEA so we were able to pick one up avoiding the sometimes quite steep delivery charges. This is possibly one of the best value (aka cheapest) highchairs on the market, coming in at a bargain £10.99 plus an additional £4.00 for the tray. Told you it was good value!
It comes in three colours; white, red and blue. We opted for the red because we thought it was most girly (and Mr T is a Manchester United fan). The colours relate only to the chair however, the tray is a standard white.

After using this for a few weeks now I can honestly say I have not regretted my choice at all. As expected, it is very easy to keep clean due to the chair being made entirely of plastic and therefore not having any fabric/cushions/fiddly bits to remove stray spag bol from. In fact the only part that can really get dirty is the strap/safety belt but this can be easily removed and (I should imagine) would be easily washed in a washing machine. Or by hand, if you can be bothered! I have heard of people actually placing the highchair into their shower too to rinse it off as it's so compact (yes, I admit I did try this after a particularly messy lunch but unfortunately for me it didn't fit!) The lack of padding may put people off but IKEA have thought about this and also sell the STADIG supporting cushion for £5.49 which is an inflatable support you can place in the seat. We didn't buy this and Sophia seems perfectly happy without it but the option is there if you want it.

There are no frills and ribbons to this highchair but I personally like the basic design. I love that it is easy to clean! The height is just right for our table which is great so although we are using the tray at the moment, we may remove it at some point and push Sophia right up to the table so she can be just like mummy and daddy! I can't find any negatives to report and I can't express enough what amazing value this is - a highchair for under £15.00! It's not going to appeal to everyone but I would consider it one of my better purchases to date!

To prove how good it is, here's Sophia messily enjoying her tea!

Please note, I was not asked to write this review and received no incentive to do so, I just really like the product and wanted to share!