How do you clean your highchairs?

I'm finding it hard to keep up with the highchair maintenance here. The boys eat 3 meals a day plus snacks and we're having some serious crumbs and chunks issues. :bad: I feel like I spend more time wiping and scrubbing than they do eating! So I'm wondering what tips and tricks you gals have for cleaning highchairs... or keeping them cleaner in the first place!

 

Not that this is helping you, but that's why I got the Stokke chairs, they are so easy to wipe, no little cracks and corners and they eat at the table.

About your chairs ... I've heard about people putting them outside and hosing them off ...

 

Basically, the tray gets washed after every meal and then disinfected at night. The crumbles that get in the chair a dust buster to suck them up. Then I wipe down with Clorox or Lysol wipes.

 

Isn't it disgusting Jenny...I feel like I am constantly cleaning highchairs. Do they get any food IN their mouths? :huh: I basically do the same thing as Melony. Clean the trays in the sink, and once a day(ok, moooost of the time :blush: ) take off the covers and get the crumbs with the dustbuster, and wipe it down. And about once a week I wash the covers in the the washer.

 

I also wash the trays in the sink. I keep a spray bottle of bleach water on the counter so I can spray it after each meal. Its amazing the mess babies make.

 

I do the same thing...trays are wiped in the sink after they eat anything messy, and then really deep cleaned at night. Right now I usually feed them in the bouncy's, but will use the highchairs more when dd is out of school. Right now it's more convient to use the bouncys so I can keep an eye on dd's progress in the morning!

 

Well, I can say that I don't really have any magical solutions for you as I too am getting tired of the whole cleaning the tray routine after every meal as well. As for the chair itself, I have to admit that I just wait until it is so dirty that it grosses me out and then I take the whole thing apart and clean it. I do a little wipe down now and then and clean the chunks of food I find in the seat on a regular basis but otherwise, I wait until the straps are so nasty that I can't look at them anymore and then throw them in the washing machine and clean the whole chairs down.

 

QUOTE(2plustwinsmom @ Jun 1 2007, 01:43 PM) [snapback]275438[/snapback]
I do the same thing...trays are wiped in the sink after they eat anything messy, and then really deep cleaned at night. Right now I usually feed them in the bouncy's, but will use the highchairs more when dd is out of school. Right now it's more convient to use the bouncys so I can keep an eye on dd's progress in the morning!

I wash the trays after each meal/snack and wipe down with lysol wipes. On the weekeneds I will take them out front to hose them off because that seems like the only way to get the straps clean. When they first started solids I was so anal about keeping their chairs clean but now that they spend what seems like most of the day in them, my standards are slipping.

 

Yes, ours can be pretty messy in those high chairs, too. I used endless paper towels, wipes, cloths, etc. What I did find helpful is they seem to eat better and NEATER at their "picnic table." I don't know if it's because the table portion is lower and easier for them to reach or what. However, they are consistently neater when they eat on it so we serve their snacks on it. We don't do their meals on it because they sometimes reach over and eat each other's food. This table is great because it is so easy to clean up! Here is a picture of it.

 

well my twins are almost 7 months and have two feedings a day. cereal with ebm and 2nd food jar of fruit(they share it all) and i wipe the table and faces etc with a wet wash cloth and then their second meal late afternoon..share a 1st food jar...i clean tray in sink and wipe down chair etc with clorox wipes. chairs looking real clean doing it this way. i have a few questions..

1)is this a good amount of solids besides they nurse 21/2 to 4 hours from 6 to 7:30...(5 feedings average)

2)they spit up a lot..am i giving too much..breastfeeding too much?


they are gaining nice weight and happy, heatlhy babies so guessing all is good...im all ears on your input!!

 

OMGosh, Jenny!

I was at my mom's yesterday with the babies. They had snack time and it was honestly the first time that I really used her highchairs. They are the full chair with big ole trays and cushy seats. What a MESS these make!!! Food all stuck under the pads, huge trays to clean - AWFUL!!! I would go crazy if these were our seats at home. :crazy:

I am so thankful that we have the little Fisher Price portable chairs. They don't have cushy seats and are pretty small. They are so easy to clean and disinfect.

 

I - like double or nothing also wait until the chairs get gross enough to actually take apart - throw the covers and straps in the washer and then spray the actual chair down with 409 and scrub..

I wipe out the big chunks after each meal

 

QUOTE(twinERS @ Jun 1 2007, 08:54 AM) [snapback]275524[/snapback]
well my twins are almost 7 months and have two feedings a day. cereal with ebm and 2nd food jar of fruit(they share it all) and i wipe the table and faces etc with a wet wash cloth and then their second meal late afternoon..share a 1st food jar...i clean tray in sink and wipe down chair etc with clorox wipes. chairs looking real clean doing it this way. i have a few questions..

1)is this a good amount of solids besides they nurse 21/2 to 4 hours from 6 to 7:30...(5 feedings average)

2)they spit up a lot..am i giving too much..breastfeeding too much?
they are gaining nice weight and happy, heatlhy babies so guessing all is good...im all ears on your input!!

It's possible the spit-up is caused by reflux, but it's more likely that they are becoming more active and that is pushing food out of their stomach. When my boys were 6/7 months they spit up a lot and now they don't! ardon: You can tell they are done eating when they seem uninterested, start looking away or even better begin to try to climb out of the highchair! I think the amount of solids you're feeding is fine as long as they seem satisfied.

Thanks for the advice ladies! I have some Lysol wipes floating around my house and van (for shopping cart handles mostly ) I think I'll start using those too. I suspect we'll be moving onto booster seats pretty early with these guys... I had no idea how much high chair cleaning we'd be doing!

 

Jenny-
Love the new avatar. Lysol wipes are my saviour. I use them each meal and one a week take the chairs out front with the pressure cleaner (no scrubbing needed.) I am also very greatful for removeable trays (the double kind that the top parts comes off) makes cleaning their fingerpaint food easier.

 

Jenny, we are dust buster people too. We wipe the trays down with wipes and then once a week or so I wash the covers (they are fabric seat covers).

 

We took the covers off ( I got sick of cleaning them) and then put down a cutout of that rubbery shelf liner material you buy at the dollar store to make it a little slide-proof. I can take that out so easily and rinse it in the sink when they spill food on it and it catches the food as it falls off them. I also started putting down newspaper under them when they eat really nasty stuff, rather than buying those expensive plastic floor covers.

 

I HATE cleaning. I HATE cleaning the highchairs even more. I find that reducing the amount of food I put in front of them at one time reduces the mess. I put the bite sized pieces in a bowl beside me and put two in front of each of them at a time far apart on the tray. Before I would put a pile in front of each and the mess would be a lot bigger.

 

QUOTE(mom of one plus two @ Jun 3 2007, 12:56 AM) [snapback]277198[/snapback]
I find that reducing the amount of food I put in front of them at one time reduces the mess. I put the bite sized pieces in a bowl beside me and put two in front of each of them at a time far apart on the tray.


Yup, good idea! I take the dust buster to the chairs and wipe after each feed. I like the pressure washer idea . This is one of the reason I just can't bring myself to let them try and spoon feed themselves yet. They will be the only teenagers who don't know how to use a spoon!

 

I wash there trays after each meal in the sink and wash the chair down after each meal with Pinesole and water mix that I keep in my kitchen special for it...... It makes there chair real clean but im a clean nut all the time anyways plus I have nothing else to do but clean up after them anyways.....