With the look of a modern office chair and a host of useful design features, the Mamas & Papas Loop highchair combines style and function, but it comes at a price.
With its star-shaped base and lever for raising and lowering, this seat is definitely designed with modern parents in mind. It reclines, rotates, is height-adjustable, and comes in a choice of black or white seat to suit your home. The highchair also offers a choice of vibrantly coloured accessory packs, comprising the seat fabric, reversible posture support that also doubles as a headhugger, chest pads for the straps and tray insert – these are where you’ll add a splash of vibrant colour. These packs are also available separately, so you can mix and match colours or just have one spare for when the seat fabric is in the wash.
What we love
If you like modern design, you’ll love the look of this highchair with its curvy lines and sleek oval shape. The choice of colourways is also great. The seat recline is really useful, both for early days of weaning when your baby may not quite be sitting up on his own, and for when the effort of eating just sends him off to sleep. The recline is operated by a button on each side of the chair and can be done with your baby in situ.
The height-adjustability is great, as he can sit at the same level as you, whether it’s at the table or the breakfast bar and the tray removes in a trice so he can join you for proper family mealtimes. The fact that it rotates 360° means you can turn him to face you, whatever you’re up to in the kitchen. With the tray insert, you can let him make a mess with his lunch, whip this out and leave him with a clean tray to play at – this is not dishwasher safe, but easy to wipe clean.
What to watch out for
The lever on the side makes you think this will be as easy to raise and lower as a standard office chair, but don’t be fooled: you have to push down quite hard on this to make it move. The seat fabric looks great, but can’t be wiped clean in the same way as plastic, so, given that babies are pretty messy eaters, you’ll need to put this in the machine on a daily basis, and may well struggle to get it dry between tea time and breakfast the next day. Extra accessory packs are available, but at £50, it’s a lot to pay on top of the price of an already quite expensive highchair.
The Loop weighs a fairly hefty 10.5kg and isn’t collapsible, so manoeuvring it isn’t easy. And that gorgeous star-shaped bas takes up quite a bit of floor space – this isn’t a great choice for anyone with small kitchen/dining rooms.
Who is the Mamas & Papas Loop highchair best for?
Lovers of space-age design who can live with the impracticalities
A fab-looking modern highchair with lots of really useful features, the Loop is let down by its bulkiness, weight and the fact that it’s not very easy to clean. If the looks still win despite this, it could be the highchair for you.
