best high chairs for small apartments

Mockingbird High Chair

A beechwood-framed chair with a narrow Y-shaped base designed to tuck under a dining table rather than park beside it, which is the whole point in a room where the table is also the desk. The seat and tray are wipeable plastic and the tray liner goes in the dishwasher, and the tray and legs come off quickly if you need it out of the way entirely. It converts from a high chair into a child chair, so it keeps earning its floor space after the purees stop. It is one of the pricier picks here and it does not fold, so the footprint you buy is the footprint you live with.

Stokke Tripp Trapp High Chair

The solid-beech Scandinavian chair that has been in production since the seventies, built so the seat and footplate slide up and down a fixed frame instead of the chair changing size. It does not fold, but it is slim enough at eighteen inches wide to sit at the table permanently and read as furniture rather than baby gear, which is a real consideration when your dining area is also your living room. Because the wood frame is rated for adult weight, the same chair keeps being used long after the baby set comes off. The catch is the price, and that the infant attachment and tray are sold separately.

Inglesina Fast Table Chair

A fabric seat on a steel frame that clamps straight onto the edge of your table, so it takes up no floor at all and there is no plastic base collecting crumbs underneath. It folds down into the storage bag it ships with, flat enough to go in a closet, a drawer or a stroller basket, which makes it double as the travel chair. The trade-off is that it needs a table with a suitable overhang and no apron underneath, and there is no footrest, which some parents care about for longer meals.

Lalo Hook-On Chair

Lalo's answer to the Inglesina: the same idea of a seat that hooks over the table edge, in the muted colours the brand builds its whole range around, with a carry bag included. It clamps to tables between about three-quarters of an inch and three inches thick, which covers most apartment dining tables but is worth measuring first. Like every hook-on chair it frees up floor space completely and travels well, and like every hook-on chair it depends entirely on having the right table to hang it from.

Lalo The Booster

A one-piece seat on FSC-certified beech legs that straps onto a dining chair you already own, so the only new object in the room is the seat itself. The minimal moulded shape has no crevices to trap food and wipes down in one pass, and it lifts off and goes in a closet when guests come. It is rated to fifty pounds, well past the point most children stop needing a booster, but it costs more than most plastic boosters and it does not fold flat.

Chicco Bento 3-in-1 Booster Seat

The cheapest way on this list to get a child safely up to the table: a plastic booster that straps onto an ordinary dining chair, with anti-slip feet so it does not mark the chair or slide around. It collapses in a single motion with the tray still snapped on and has a carry handle built in, so it goes from in use to in a cupboard in seconds. At five and a half pounds it is the sort of thing you can take to a grandparent's flat without planning around it. It sits a child high enough for the table but gives you none of the recline or height adjustment a full high chair offers.

Graco Slim Snacker Highchair

A full-height high chair built around one trick: a one-hand fold that takes about a second and leaves the chair standing upright on its own, narrow enough to slide into a gap beside the fridge. It is the conventional-high-chair experience at a conventional-high-chair price, without the permanent floor claim, which is why it turns up on nearly every small-space list. The seat pad and tray insert are machine washable and dishwasher safe. It is still a fairly wide chair when open, so it solves storage rather than footprint.

Ingenuity Trio Foldaway 6-in-1 High Chair

One frame that the maker counts six ways: full-size high chair, up-to-table chair, booster, toddler stool, toddler chair and a double seat for two children. For an apartment the useful part is that it folds away after every meal and rolls on two wheels, so the same object is a high chair at six months and a stool at four years without you buying anything else. The adjustable footrest is a genuinely nice touch at this price. It is the heaviest of the folding chairs here, so the fold matters more than the carrying.

IKEA ANTILOP High Chair

Twenty-five dollars, a polypropylene shell on four steel legs, and a cult following among parents in small flats. The legs pull out without tools, so the whole chair comes apart and goes flat behind a door or into a suitcase, and the seat can be carried to the bath and hosed down, which is why it survives baby-led weaning better than upholstered chairs. There is no footrest and no recline, and the tray is sold separately in some configurations, so plenty of owners add a third-party footrest and cushion. Rated only to thirty-three pounds, it is a chair you will outgrow rather than one that grows with you.

Chicco Zest 4-in-1 Folding High Chair

The lightest full-height chair on this list at nine and a half pounds, which changes how you use it: you carry it between rooms rather than deciding where it lives. It folds compactly and parks the tray on the rear legs so the two pieces stay together in the closet, a small thing that stops the tray migrating to the back of a cupboard. It has fewer positions and less padding than heavier chairs at similar money, which is the trade you are making for the weight.

Munchkin Float Easy Clean Foldable High Chair

A seamless moulded seat on a cantilevered frame, designed so there are no seat pads, straps or crevices for food to hide in, which is the daily win when the kitchen and the dining table are the same three feet of counter. A button collapses the legs and the removable tray hooks onto the back of the chair, so it stores as one piece about eight inches deep. It is the second most expensive chair here and rated only to thirty-three pounds, so you are paying a premium for the cleaning and the fold rather than for longevity.

Maxi-Cosi Minla 6-in-1 High Chair

A high chair that starts as a newborn recliner and ends as a stool for a five-year-old, passing through four seating modes in between, with nine height positions and rear-locking wheels. If you want one object to cover the whole span from birth to school age without storing a second seat somewhere, this is the pick, and it still folds slim when the meal is over. It is the heaviest chair here at twenty-two pounds, so moving it daily is more of a chore than folding it, and the newborn modes are the part most families use for the shortest time.