The Rainforest Healthy Care at it's lowest setting, shown with snap-in toys for baby to play with while waiting for her meal.
Credit: Jessica Stevenson
The Fisher-Price Rainforest Healthy Care is one of many in the company's lineup of high chairs. It has bright, colorful chair cushions that will surely catch your baby's attention and toys that snap into the tray to keep baby occupied while you prepare a meal. It does have four wheels with brakes on each, although they are on the smaller side. The tray is large enough to hold food for baby plus a sippy cup (or two) and the snack tray is removable for easy cleaning. We liked that there were five different tray depth adjustments so you could move it just close enough for baby. Unfortunately, the chair has lots of crevices for catching food, which made clean-up a challenge.
About Fisher-Price
Fisher-Price got it's start as a toy company out of New York in 1930. Two men, Herman Fisher and Irving Price, and one woman, Helen Schelle, were at the helm of the operation, producing new, innovative toys that they believed could stimulate development while allowing baby to have fun at the same time. Since then, the company has grown exponentially and now includes not only innovative developmental toys, but also quality, affordable baby products.
Performance Comparison
Ease of Use
The Rainforest Healthy Care did fairly well in our ease of use metric, earning itself a 6 of 10. The frame of the chair has nice, large numbers and red folding levers to make it easy to know what height you're at when adjusting. While it was easy to adjust down, the adjustment back up was not quite as smooth. The extra padding around the baby's head was a nice touch, and even better was easily removed for cleaning, or for when baby grows and it is no longer needed. The five point harness was easy to adjust, but similar to the Summer Infant Bentwood, the straps were pure white, meaning every little stain would show.
Ease of Cleaning
The Fisher Price chair offered a nice deep tray to prevent spills onto the floor.
Credit: Jessica Stevenson
As we mentioned, the chair seat pad was easy to wipe down and could even be removed for washing, but unfortunately the ease-of-cleaning stopped there for us. Under the seat were deep crevices that somehow caught food, and we literally could not get the food out without tipping the chair upside down. Additionally, the tray is quite large, and was bulky for not only our sink but our dishwasher as well. The toy that hooks into the tray is great for entertainment, but also a nightmare for food crumbs. Seriously, we don't know how, but where there is a crevice, crumbs are sure to follow. And how does one snap in a toy to a tray? Why, with the addition of
more nooks and crannies, of course. We didn't find the addition of a toy to be worth the extra clean-up hassle.
Quality
Although not the highest quality of craftsmanship, this chair did boast plenty of distractions to keep baby happy while waiting for her meal!
Credit: Jessica Stevenson
Clearly, this is not Fisher-Price's first rodeo with high chairs. That being said, we maybe were expecting a
little more high-quality chair from this company. However, they did price it accordingly, so what you'll get is a full plastic seat, plastic tray, plastic toys, and a bulky plastic/metal frame. Baby sat deep enough in the chair, but the backrest just seemed huge and overwhelming, the bright pattern of the cushion not helping, either. Four of the five harness buckles were easy to adjust, however the fifth crotch harness had no adjustment at all, and was about a foot long! This didn't feel very secure and it also means that for smaller babies, the buckle could sit all the way up on their chest, something we were not fond of.
The tray features a convenient one-hand release, but beware that it is quite heavy, and you might want to support it with your second hand. Overall, this chair earned itself a 4 of 10 in quality.
Ease of Set Up
Only two chairs in our group of 9 earned themselves a 'difficult' rating for setting up, and the Rainforest Healthy Care was one of them, the other being the Keekaroo Height Right. This chair took us over 25 minutes to put together, and the instructions were not very clear. If you're looking for a chair that takes 'easy assembly' to a whole new level, check out the Baby Bjorn which took us a swift 2 minutes and 39 seconds to assemble!
Footprint and Portability
The brakes on the Fisher Price Rainforest high chair were not our favorite. Small levers on all four wheels meant a lot of bending over for mom and dad.
Credit: Jessica Stevenson
This chair took up a whopping 717 square inches of premium floor space in our kitchen. Although it earned points for having wheels, we found them to be too small to maneuver easily, and the tiny brakes on each individual wheel required us to set them by hand. The chair did however have a convenient folding option, and weighs about 20 pounds, making it one of the lighter options in our pack. Overall, this chair earned a 4 of 10 for footprint and portability.
Best Applications
Baby using the chair pushed right up close to the dining table.
Credit: Jessica Stevenson
This product would works best for families on a budget, not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on a high chair, but still wanting to get a reliable product that has the potential to last for years. Although it won't be the easiest to clean, it will keep baby secure and occupied while you prepare a meal. Its larger-than-average footprint will take up a lot of space on your kitchen floor, but it will fold for storage if necessary when not in use.
Value
Retailing for only $80 on Amazon, based on our testing, this is a fair price for what you are getting. It will keep your baby safe and secure while you feed them, and could potentially last you many years since the maximum weight limit is 50 pounds.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this is a fun, interactive way to feed baby. The included toys keep boredom at bay, and if you'd like, you can even adjust the chair so that baby can join the family at the kitchen table. Its bright, flashy colors may not match your kitchen decor, but little ones will love them and at least you can fold it up for storage when not in use.
