How to Clean a Highchair
Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert, advice columnist, and New York Times bestselling author of My Boyfriend Is Boiling In My Purse … And Other Things You Can’t Ask Martha About . Her flagship column, Ask a Pure Man, debuted in 2011. Here at Offspring we’ve launched a new iteration dedicated to parenting and all the mess it brings.
Here’s the thing: I did NOT pay attention to the “easy to clean” feature when buying a highchair. Instead, we wanted one that would look beautiful in our dining room. (It was stupid.)
So we have this , the Joovy Wooden Corner, which has since been discontinued. Presumably, it has a “glossy” wood surface, making it easier to clean. It’s a lie. If the food is not wiped off within 30 minutes, it will stick. The highchair also has a variety of tiny slots perfect for food particles tossed or tossed by a child.
We didn’t show that diligence, and unfortunately it’s pretty disgusting. Do you have any tips for clearing stuck, dried-on food debris from worn wood trim and crevices?
Let me agree with you: in this column, I’m going to advise you on getting to this highchair with a toothbrush, and to make up for that, I feel obligated to cheer you up by setting out a precise and streamlined order. operations. Why do I feel obligated to do this? Because you are a parent and you will probably read the word “toothbrush” and storm my house with pitchforks and torches. “LADY, DO YOU KNOW HOW TIRED I AM? I DON’T HAVE TIME OR ENERGY TO FOOL WITH A TOOTHBRUSH TO CLEAN THE HIGH CHAIR. “
What is fair! But I also really promise that this operation will not take you more than 15-20 minutes and that using your toothbrush will not be as disgusting as it seems. One of the reasons for this is that we will let the products do most of the work for us. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here are your main steps:
- Remove the tray and straps. In this particular highchair model, the tray is removable, so the first thing to do is to remove it from the chair frame and place it in the kitchen sink so that it is submerged in hot water with a little dish soap. The water will, in fact, repair the stuck food, which means that when you walk in to wipe it off, you won’t have to put that much grease on it. If the straps are also removable, remove them and throw them with the drip tray into the sink.
- Put down the tarp. This job is going to be a little boring, so to save yourself the hassle of doing a lot of cleaning up after your, um, cleaning up, throw something under the high chair to collect drops and crumbs. A trash bag would be ideal, but you can also use newspaper (assuming you have a newspaper!) Or a real tarp.
- Water the highchair well. The choice of cleaning agent is not really as important here as the choice of tool, but generally speaking, you will want to use the all-purpose cleaning agent that is found in the spray bottle. Why spray can? Because this will make it much easier to apply the cleaning solution to the highchair. Here’s what I want you to do: Starting at the top of the chair and working downward, spray it well with an all-purpose cleaner. Go ahead and go crazy! Then, head back to the sink to wash this tray as the all-purpose cleaner starts to seep into adhering food, drooling and dirty handprints.
- Wash the tray as if you were washing dishes. It’s pretty straightforward, but it’s worth noting at this point that if there are stains left after washing the tray, the Magic Eraser will most likely lift them up. If the straps were removable and soaked in dish soap solution, just rinse them well and lay them on a towel to air dry.
- It’s time to brush your teeth. Okay, here’s the toothbrush. Working from top to bottom, swallow the highchair well. You can also replace a slightly larger cleaning brush like this one, or the Dobie Pad , which is a cleaning sponge that doesn’t scratch. The idea here is basically that you want an all-purpose cleaner to go through all of that dried food in one or two blows, and a toothbrush, scrubbing brush, or scrubbing sponge does the hard work for you.
- Wipe off the entire device. Since we are pretty much at odds with the universal cleaner, there will be a lot of leftovers on it, as well as now scattered food particles. Dampen a clean rag and dry the entire highchair very well, rinsing the rag if necessary. If the straps have not come off, use a rag and some dish soap to clean them.
- Dry the highchair and put the tray back down. Drying the highchair with a rag or microfiber cloth rather than letting it air dry is a good finishing step because there are probably some crumbs a dry cloth can get as a damp cloth.
One final tip for crumbs: Depending on how cracked the highchair is, you can start the process by blowing out the crumbs with compressed air before adding liquid cleaners. It’s always best to start with compressed air (this is true for keyboard cleaning as well) because its power carries away dirt everywhere. If you are using compressed air as the last step, you just need to make another pass to erase everything.
Before we close this question, let’s ask a question to make parenting easier for each other: Do you have a highchair that is easy to clean? Please let us know about it!