Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair review

Our verdict, if you don’t read another word: the Stokke Tripp Trapp is our 5 out of 5, and the wooden high chair we’d buy. It’s solid beech, it pulls your baby right up to the family table, and when the baby years are over the Baby Set comes off and it carries on as a chair rated to 300 lb. We bought ours recently, and it has already taken over from the Baby Trend Sit Right 2.0 as the chair we use every day.

One note on scope. We cover this chair as gear. When a baby is ready to sit and eat is a question for the AAP and your pediatrician, and we set out what they say in when can a baby use a high chair. How to fit the harness and use the chair safely is a question for the manual that ships with it and the CPSC, rather than a blog.

What the Tripp Trapp is

5 / 5our rating

A solid beech wood chair, rated to 300 lb, that weighs 21.4 lb. The version we have comes as a bundle: the Tripp Trapp chair, the Baby Set, a removable 5-point harness, the tray and a cushion. The Baby Set is for ages 6 to 36 months. The chair comes with gliders for extra stability, and the wooden parts carry a 7-year warranty.

It was designed by Peter Opsvik in 1972. His son had grown out of his high chair but was still too small for an adult chair, and the Tripp Trapp was his answer: one chair that seats every age at the same table.

A chair built to sit at the table

Most high chairs are their own little island, with a tray between the baby and everyone else. The Tripp Trapp is designed the other way round. It’s built to bring a baby right up to the family table, so they eat where everyone else eats.

The tray is included in this bundle, and you can see it in our photo. It’s a convenient extra rather than the point, because the chair is made to go right up to your table without one.

We use ours with the tray on, and it’s easy to clean, which counts for a lot on a chair that sees every meal.

The Baby Set and the harness

The Baby Set is the part that turns the chair into a high chair for a 6 to 36 month old. It attaches to the chair without tools. The harness is a redesigned 5-point, made to be easier to attach to the Baby Set, easier to adjust, and easier to take off your child.

That makes the Tripp Trapp one of only two high chairs we own with a 5-point harness, alongside the Ingenuity Sun Valley. Which harness your child needs is a question for the manual and a standards body, not a blog.

A chair for life

This is what sets it apart from everything else we own. When your child outgrows the Baby Set, you take it off. The chair underneath has adjustable seat and foot plates, so you can set each one at a comfortable height and angle as your child grows, well into adulthood. The 300 lb rating is what backs that up.

Every other high chair we own has an end date. The Baby Trend Sit Right 2.0 becomes a toddler chair and is rated to 40 lb. The Primo PopUp stops at 36 months. The Tripp Trapp doesn’t stop.

Weight and wood

At 21.4 lb, it’s the heaviest high chair we own, against 14.95 lb for the Baby Trend and 10 lb for the Primo. That’s what solid beech weighs. It isn’t a chair you’ll carry from room to room, and the gliders are there to keep it steady where it stands.

If you’re weighing wood against plastic in general, we lay out the trade-offs in wooden vs plastic high chairs.

Living with it

We haven’t had it long, and it went straight to being the chair we use every day. Two things made that easy. It’s easy to keep clean, tray and all, and the build is very good. It feels like the kind of chair the 300 lb rating and the 7-year warranty suggest.

The other reason we think of it as an all-rounder is the range. There are newborn options for it as well, so it doesn’t have to wait for the 6 month Baby Set, and at the other end it keeps going into adulthood. No other chair we own covers that much of childhood. For the cleaning routine we use on any chair, see how to clean a baby high chair.

How it compares with our other chairs

Against the Lalo and our Graco Ready2Dine DLX, the two chairs on wooden legs we’ve used, the Tripp Trapp is the all-wood one and the one that lasts. The Lalo is a plastic seat on wooden legs, 10 lb and rated to 30 lb, with its own 5-point harness. The Graco has beechwood legs, weighs 10.5 lb and has a 3-point harness. All three are compared in the best wooden high chairs, and the Tripp Trapp and the Lalo go head to head in Stokke Tripp Trapp vs Lalo.

Against the Baby Trend Sit Right 2.0, the plastic chair it replaced as our everyday one, the Tripp Trapp swaps recline and six height positions for adjustable seat and foot plates and a much longer life. All of our chairs are ranked in our best high chair roundup.

Who should buy it

Buy the Tripp Trapp if you want your baby at the table with you from the start, if you’d rather buy one chair that keeps going for years than a high chair that ends at three, or if you simply want solid wood instead of plastic. If you like the idea but want to spend less, we cover two cheaper Tripp Trapp alternatives recommended by parents we know.

If you’re still weighing up features, our high chair buying guide goes through them one at a time. Skip it if you need a chair that’s light enough to move every day. If you need one that folds away, see the best high chairs for small spaces.

The bottom line

The Stokke Tripp Trapp is our 5 out of 5. It’s solid beech, it brings a baby to the family table with a 5-point harness and a Baby Set that goes on without tools, and once that set comes off it’s a chair rated to 300 lb that adjusts as your child grows. It’s heavy, and it’s built to stay where you put it. It’s already the chair we use every day, and the one we’d call the all-rounder.