Fisher-Price Infant-to-Toddler Rocker, 3.08 kg, GNV70

Product Information

As child nutritionist Charlotte Stirling-Reed says, sitting your child at your eye level and at (or close to) the rest of the family at mealtimes aids their development. Lightweight and portable, the Hoopla can be folded flat for storage or travel, so is the ideal companion for overnight stays with the grandparents or family holidays should you wish to take your bouncer with you. Our parent tester Luci says, “The Chicco Hoopla has a compact fold. Second best to the flatter BabyBjörn Bouncer Bliss but far better than all the others I tested. It lies completely flat so it’s easy to pop into the car to take to a friends’ [house].”

We asked Charlotte Stirling-Reed what features bewildered first-time parents might watch out for, here are her top tips: These are the big guns of the group – the chairs intended to last as standalone models in babyhood and then convert to table-side models that can be used in toddlerhood, childhood and even beyond.It can be used with the newborn set from birth, the baby set from six months (sitting unaided) and after three years or 15kg until adulthood and beyond, so it's great if you need a piece of furniture that will last and can be used by every member of the family. We also like that the tray is dishwasher-safe for particularly messy mealtimes! It's expensive but with a thriving second-hand market you should get a high resale value when you're finished with it. Bouncers often come with different recline settings for babies to rest, relax, play, and interact with an older sibling.

Most travel highchairs either attach to an adult dining chair as a chair-mounted booster or clip onto the table edge (sometimes called a hook-on or clip-on highchair) like a vice. In both cases, you need suitable furniture to make it work – though, anecdotally, the chair-attaching kind fit more universally than the table-attaching kind. Although some of the chairs we tested had extra accessories making them suitable for smaller babies, children should only use a highchair to eat once they’re able to sit unaided.

Highchairs are a safe and supportive place for your baby to eat before they’re old and tall enough to sit on an adult-sized dining chair. Most come with a plastic tray so your baby can see and reach their food easily – especially useful when first weaning. It can be used as a bouncer up to 9kg, which is somewhere between eight and 10 months of age, after which it converts to a toddler chair to be used until your child is around two years old.