Customer Reviews

Chicco Polly Double Pad Vinyl High Chair, Splash

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I would not buy this high chair again at any price. Most significantly, the tray is 2 pieces of plastic screwed together. My daughter is so messy that I need to thoroughly clean the high chair tray after every meal - just wiping with a damp cloth is not sufficient. (The tray covers don't help, she messes up the surfaces that the tray covers don't protect - especially the side of the tray closest to her tummy.)

Anyway, because the tray is 2 pieces screwed together, it fills up with water every time, but the water doesn't drain out quickly. Thus, the tray is often full of water! Also, my daughter gets the "seam" all full of crud and food. One time, my husband unscrewed the two pieces to thoroughly clean the tray, and we were disgusted by all the grime and crud inside!

Both the chair and the cushions are loaded with seams, cracks, and crevices that simply trap food and grime. They're always disgusting, and they're very hard to clean, unless you're willing to scrub your chair down with a toothbrush. (And with an infant and toddler, who has time for that!?!?!?)

The chair folds up nicely, but that feature is useless, because the chair won't stand up. If you fold it up and lean it against a wall, it will simply slide down the wall and crash to the floor.

Our chair is 2 years old, and the seat cushion has a huge tear along one of the seams.

There MUST be a better high chair out there.

I am a mother of 3 and I purchased this high chair about 2 years ago.I would not purchase it again. While it was a decent price and nice looking, it has some major drawbacks. First, the crotch bar is attached to the tray. Very inconvenient if you are trying to manage the baby and the tray. You cannot set it down on a table. Second the vinyl seat is not well made. Food gets caught everywhere even underneath the seat. A milk spill caused a horrible smell that could not be cleaned even with taking the seat cover completely off and washing it. It saturated underneath the seat and smells like rotten milk. The seat also has cracked and torn after only about a year and a half of use. That just does not seem like a reasonable amount of time to me considering your child is supposed to grow with the chair. Another thing that is very gross is that the tray has a ridge around it (where top and bottom half come together) that gets deposited with food and dirt. I have tried to clean it with a toothbrush and my steam cleaner without much success. And if you are not very careful when you clean the tray it will fill up with water. I see this as a saftey hazard as mold can grow on the inside of the tray. There is no way to completely dry it out. I would not recommend this chair.

This high chair looks great in the store -- it looks well designed, it folds up, and, unlike many, it isn't hideously ugly -- but then you get it home and quickly realize that whoever designed it must not have had kids.

The design flaws:

1. The tray is about 25 inches wide. Your dishwasher is only about 20 inches wide and deep. Which means that it won't fit in your dishwasher. (If I were to design a high chair, the first thing I'd do is figure out how big a normal dishwasher is and design a tray that fits!)

2. The tray liner doesn't have a lip that goes completely over the front of the tray, so as your kid smears food around, he's smearing on the front of the tray. Which is made worse by the fact that the tray ...

3. ... is made of two pieces, resulting in a crevice -- perfect for a toddler to smash food into -- in the front of the tray where the two pieces come together.

4. So now not only are you handwashing the tray liner, you're handwashing the tray each time. And if you've got a double sink, you've now got both a 25 inch wide tray liner and 25 inch wide tray sticking out at angle of a sink that's not that wide. And neither of them will fit in a drying rack, so you can't leave them to drip dry, either.

5. The tray itself is also hampered by the fact the the T-bar that goes between the kids legs is attached to the tray, so you can't set it down flat. So, if you take the tray off the high chair, you've got to first make sure that any bowls or cups or loose bits of food are off the tray, since they'll just slide off when you put the tray down, since they tray rests at an angle thanks to the T-bar.

6. And the high chair and pad themselves are full of other little seams, cracks and crevices for food to accumulate.

And the folding feature that seemed so useful in the store? We never once used in the 6 months we owned the chair (Before we tossed in the towel and bought the well-designed Boon Flair.)

I LOVE this high chair! I show off all its 'tricks' to everyone who comes over. I noticed a lot of people complaining about the 'crack' in the tray getting dirty. Heres my solution..scotch tape. When we first got the chair, I put a long piece of tape over the crack, like a barrier. I can wipe over it with a wet cloth just like the rest of the tray (I don't put the trays in the dishwasher as they take up too much room, and I can hand wash them a lot quicker.) I've had the chair for a year now, and have only had to change the tape once. Works for us, and no q-tip or toothpick scrubbing!

I like this chair a lot. The child loves it and is mighty comfortable once he lets me slide the table on, which he kicks away expertly. It is rather long when unfolded so it needs some space for opening. it closes up super compact.

I would give it negative stars! This highchair is nothing more than an expensive habitat for all manner of molds, fungus, and bacteria. The only thing that has stopped me from calling the company to scream at them is the international charges for calling Italy.

Why, you ask? Allow me to explain.

As cool as it is to have a highchair that is fully adjustable (really? who the heck needs to have their child RECLINE at mealtime???--the photos show a mom giving a bottle to a baby in the chair, and thus, it is reclined--WTF? Who does that?), the joints and levers of this chair require it to be covered in niches, cracks, crevices, and crannies, all of which can get filled with food.

Just clean it up, you say? HAH! You can spend hours cleaning this chair, with a toothbrush, going over every place that food gets crammed in it, and then turn it over and chunks (CHUNKS!) of food will fall out of places you didn't even know existed!

The removable trays are completely useless, as they do not sit flush with the main tray. As such, any normal child will quickly learn to pull up on the removable tray and easily disconnect it from the main tray, causing spills. Additionally, you're thinking, "Cool, it has a removable tray that will be easy to clean!" WRONG. Once the kiddo realizes how easy it is to lift the tray, you will be cleaning both the removable tray and the main tray at every meal, because food will be in between the two under the removable portion, smashed onto the main tray.

And while we're talking about it, the tray has a clam shell design with an upper and a lower portion. The two halves are sealed together so that you can't take them apart. Why would anyone want to take them apart, you say? Well, in sealing the two halves together, the designers left a seam that runs the entire perimeter of the tray. This is yet another place where little fingers can jam any number of soft foods. Once packed in, a toothbrush just isn't quite enough to get it out, so you'll want to take the tray apart to get at the food in there, but you can't do that. And don't try to soak the tray, because it will fill up with water that can only be let out through the two holes on the underside that are supposed to be used to hang it up on the back of the chair. This basically means that any water you let into the tray will be there until it evaporates.

Hanging the tray on the back of the chair by the little grommets provided is just pointless unless you are storing the chair indefinitely. Every parent knows that you usually have the kiddo in your hands when you're getting ready for meal time, and the last thing you need to do is bend over to grab the tray from behind the chair while you are struggling to get him buckled in and ready to eat. It's just inconvenient. Thus, the tray will find a home precariously resting on the seat, or on a counter top, where it can be knocked over and cause spills in other areas of your home.

The wheels on the legs of the chair are another area of poor design. For starters, they individually lock, so you can have problems rolling the unit around, and spend extra time trying to figure out which ONE of the wheels is causing the problem. Next, the wheels consist of two cylindrical hollow pieces of plastic, each with one open side. These pieces are placed with about .5 inch between them, just enough room for you to roll them over that errant puddle of spaghetti with meatballs, and get it all up inside the wheel. Then, one day you'll be crawling around on the floor looking for something one day and finally become aware of the ant farm/mold culture living inside the wheels of the chair.

The vinyl cover for the seat is also poorly designed. It has large piping flaps accompanying the seams, meaning that if you just want to wipe out the seat after mealtime, you will be doing nothing to remove crumbs and smeared food (and sometimes poop!) that get stuck under there. In short, the only meaningful way to clean the vinyl pad is to wash it in the laundry, but who wants to do that after every meal!?

The straps used to secure your little bundle of joy to the seat are impossible to adjust on the fly, and they run around BEHIND the vinyl pad. They are also difficult to properly clean and will become stained and ugly in short order, along with the crotch strap, which is secured to the chair in such a way that you will never be able to fully clean it. The foam pads used to cover the straps are simply another place to catch all manner of food and baby muck. Plus, they're tube-shaped, so you'll wrack your brain trying to figure out how to make sure you got everything out of them, before you decide to simply throw them away. Get used to a distinct smell and appearance for your $100+ Chicco high chair.

In short, buy this product if you are of the opinion that you need more suffering in your life. It's a fairly good substitute for self-flagellation. Compare this chair in price and design with the $20 ANTILOP model over at Ikea's fine website. Ikea's high chair is one piece of molded plastic that can be hosed out if need be, and the straps are easily removed for cleaning.

oh my heavens! We had an old high chair given to us and decided it was time to upgrade.... oh my did we make a good choice! this high chair is wonderful. it adjusts to several different heights and in every way is convenient and wonderful! Would definitely buy this product again! It is amazing! We love CHICCO products! : )

Got this when our baby was nearly 6 mo old and love it! We use it 3-4 times a day and she seems to be comfortable in it. We have taken it on vacation with us and it wasnt too hard to get in and out of our mini van and didnt take up alot of room all folded up. I only wish that when folded it stood up on its own, if it does I havent been able to get it to balance right but most of the time we have it out. This is my first high chair so Im not sure how it compares to others in how much room it takes up when in use, it seems to take up alot of room when we have it out but it rolls very easy so its just a matter of finding a place to put it out of the way. We dont use the recline option much now but at first we used it alot, made giving a bottle alot easier, the movement was truly one handed. Love the removable trays, we keep one w/ toys on and and take it off to eat, shes not quite to the mess making stage so I'm not sure how bad this is going to be to clean, I clean the seam on the tray every couple days w/ an old toothbrush and hot water, she never fails to get something on her hand and grab that edge. The removable trays dont fit in our washer but they aren't hard to clean in the sink. For now I dont remove the tray often as baby is small enough she can be put in and taken out w/o removing it, the few times I have had to take it off it took a minute to get the tray back on. The pommel attached to the tray is a bit annoying but it looks like alot of others are going the same way, for now I dont really keep anything on it that would require me to have it lay flat if I did take it off. Overall we love this chair.

My daughter has been eating food on this chair for a week, starting with the usual carrots & sweet potatoes. Already the main tray is permanently stained orange. The top clear plastic cover is ok, but it doesn't cover the part of the tray closest to her. I'll also echo all of the major flaws other people mentioned here:
- Crack on the edge of the main tray where the top & bottom meet is a total crud collector and impossible to clean
- T-bar never stayed on the tray properly, and is pointless being on the tray when a squirmy baby tries to slide out of the chair when you're taking off the harness
- Chair folds nicely but has to be supported in order to stand up
- Baby doesn't fit in the harness properly, no matter how many adjustments I make - always lists to one side or the other
- Can't properly wash the larger tray since it collects water

I wish more of these recent reviews had been posted back when I registered for this a year ago. I don't think I'm going to stick with this high chair long-term, and will probably sell it to get at least some value out of it.

I have the Chicco Keyfit infant carseat/stroller combination and loved it which is what made me look at the Chicco highchairs. I really wanted to like it based on how happy I was with the carseat, but after living with it for 6 months I just don't like it. There are several reasons, many of which have been mentioned by other reviewers:

1) Difficult to clean. There is a seam around the tray that is almost impossible to remove the caked in food crud from. You moms (and dads) out there know how talented babies are at getting food into crevices... There is another seam where the legs hinge that is also hopelessly filled with sweet potatoes, etc. This really bugs me because I like to keep eating areas very clean. I cannot emphasize enough how difficult this highchair is to clean. You may not notice it when you are first using it with a very young baby, but once they get bigger and messier - YUCK.

2) Tray design is poor. It is difficult to attach the tray with two hands, impossible with one. Maybe it's just my particular highchair, but the grooves in the tray that are supposed to slide onto the armrests don't match up very well. Finagling that on with a squirmy 10-month-old kicking at it can turn into an exercise in frustration. The solid piece that goes between their legs is attached to the tray, so you can't take it off and set it down on a table or counter if there is anything on it - including if there is just spilled liquids on it, which tends to happen! Also, the hooks for hanging it on the legs of the chair in back put it very low to the ground. I have dogs and cats wandering around at that level, and the tray gets furry if I store it there - though this may only be a concern for pet owners.

3) Strap adjustment is difficult. This has been my one complaint with the Chicco stroller, too, that I have found it really REALLY difficult to get the straps adjusted to hold my son properly in. He likes to try and lean way over the edge of the highchair and has almost fallen out before. This would be disastrous on my tile floors in the kitchen! The shoulder straps slide off him very easily and the waist part is hard to change the size on. I'm not an idiot - really, I'm not - but trying to get these straps right usually leaves me feeling like I need a drink.

4) Very bulky. That pretty much says it all. It does fold down pretty small, but since it's awkward to do and I don't like hooking the tray on a few inches above the floor the highchair stays open. It does roll nicely on the casters, but be prepared for this highchair to take up a significant amount of floor space.

Altogether if I had to buy another highchair I would get the Fisher Price Healthy Care highchair that my in-laws bought for their house. It's smaller, easier to clean, cheaper, overall a better design - and my son loved the toys that come with the "Rainforest" version.