Ikea Success: Finding a Chair for my Giant Toddler

So even though Jack was born prematurely, he’s pretty much a giant. He won’t be three until mid-February, but he is already 38” tall (the 93 percentile for height).

He’s a big kid. But with me at 5’7” and my husband at 6’4”… well, we kind of expected a giant child.

As most kids do, we started out with a highchair. This one to be exact. Here’s a picture from Jack’s 1 year birthday… wow, my hair is really dark. And I was 10 – 15 pounds heavier.

Jack highchair

The highchair worked out well for the first year or two, but before long he was just too big for it. I had a booster seat sitting around the house that was actually from one of my sisters (from over 20 years ago), so we strapped it to a kitchen chair and called it a day.

Jack booster

That worked out pretty well until Jack hit a growth spurt over the summer. Now when we scoot the chair up to the table, Jack complains that his knees are being squished. He’s not quite ready for a full-sized chair though… which brings us to the wonderful world of junior chairs.

It doesn’t make sense to spend a ton of money on something that Jack will probably only use for a year (if that), so I went to my happy place… Ikea!

As luck would have it, they are having a sale through the end of the month and all the junior chairs are 20% off.

Ikea junior chair choices

I narrowed down my choices to either the Agam chair or the Urban chair. The Agam chair is classic looking and would totally match our current kitchen table and chairs set. The Urban chair is nice because it’s all a matte plastic and easy to clean. I wish it was available in black, but right now it is only in white or green.

It’s hard to make a decision without actually seeing the chairs in person though, so earlier this week I made a trip to Ikea. It’s impossible to only go there for one thing, so I had a small list of stuff to look for – the two chair options, a belt hanger for my closet, a roll of paper for Mimi’s house, and a few more cheap picture frames for our kiddo art wall.

As planned, I went straight to the kid chairs display and I’m SO glad I did. In person, the Agam chair was TINY!

chairs display at Ikea

Even if Jack would fit in it now – which is debatable – he’d probably grow out of it by Christmastime. On the other hand, the Urban chair seemed quite sturdy and was awfully sassy in person. I debated between the white and green colors, but the white just seemed to attract dirt and scratches so easily. It will probably clash with my kitchen, but green it is!

I did a quick walk through the self-serve area and was totally tempted to grab a bunch of stuff not on my initial list…

Ikea - what I didn't buy

The graphic rug is AMAZING and I’m still thinking about scooping it up for my kitchen. I love the cute animal pennant for a kid’s room, or even a birthday party celebration. I kind of want to hang an entire ceiling full of these decorations in Jack’s room. I also somehow resisted these super cute yarn wrapped reindeer… but probably only because it isn’t even HALLOWEEN YET.

Ikea - what I bought

I did end up picking up everything else on my list though. The Urban junior chair ($31.99), the Kompl multi use hanger for my belts ($7.99), a roll of drawing paper ($4.99), and four Ribba frames ($4.99 and $1.99 each). All in all, I spent a total of $63 and saved $8 just by signing up for the free Ikea Family card.

Funny story: I already had a card but the kiosk wasn’t recognizing my information so I kept hitting the submit button while cursing quietly. Well, I came home to SEVEN welcome emails from Ikea… so I guess the submit button WAS actually working!

When I got the chair home I was hopeful that it would solve all our giant toddler problems. We were rushing around like crazy to get groceries put away, dinner made/eaten, bath time and bedtime… but I did get a quick picture of Jack in the chair and it fits! Here he is mid-bite:

Jack in new chair

I was concerned that the bright green chair would totally clash with my kitchen, but it’s actually not really that noticeable. In fact, it looks a heck of a lot better than the red and blue booster seat that we had been using. I’m really happy with my purchase and I’m hoping that it will be that bridge that we needed between the booster seat and the grown up kitchen chairs.

Finished chairs set

Oh, and here is our kid art wall with two of the new Ikea frames. I’m totally LOVING it!

art wall

Are you an Ikea lover? What is your favorite thing to buy there?

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5 thoughts on “Ikea Success: Finding a Chair for my Giant Toddler”

  1. I LOVE Ikea. Seriously. Ok, I hate going to the actual store but I enjoy their actual products. I got an adorable turquoise set of cube shelves that I actually use as my TV/entertainment stand. It so much fun.

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