From first tastes to fully weaned – Our Cosatto 3Sixti review

Back in December, Cosatto asked if we’d like to review a highchair as Rory was about to start weaning. I chose the 3Sixti2 (the Op Pop design). Rory has been using this highchair since he started weaning (you can watch a video of his first tastes here), and is still using the 3Sixti four months down the line.

Things I love about the 3Sixti2:

In the past, I’ve actively avoided highchairs that look difficult to clean. The 3Sixti has completely surprised me with how pain-free it is to clean. Yes, there is padding, and there are straps, but everything is removed quickly and easily and therefore doesn’t seem a huge effort to clean…and I’m cleaning it at least twice a day.

The swivel feature is great. I can ‘point’ the seat towards me depending on where I am in the room / where I am sitting at the table without the need to reposition the whole highchair (the chair is quite heavy comparatively, so it might not be the best bet if you need to move your highchair from room to room throughout the day. That being said, we move ours from inside to outside now that the weather is nicer, but I wouldn’t want to do that twice a day every day).

I never thought I would be at all interested in a recline feature. My children are not the type to EVER fall asleep at the table (not that I would want them to when they could still have food in their mouths), and I would never feed a child in anything but a fully-upright position. But, the recline feature was super useful in the month leading up to weaning with Rory. At five months old, I found it really helpful to have him up at the table during Arlo’s mealtimes. He’d sit happily, play with his toys on the tray, and watch us eat – it proved a really great way to gently introduce him to the function of food and the routine of mealtimes, before he started eating food himself.

Five month old Rory in the Cosatto 3Sixti2

There are two trays, the top tray (the yellow bit) and the white tray underneath. Both clip off very easily for cleaning, and means that when Rory is eating a low-mess meal, often the only part of the chair that needs wiping is the yellow tray, which I can clip off and wipe clean within nano seconds. (The yellow tray literally just pulls off, which might be problematic with an older baby/toddler once they figure out how easy it is to remove. Rory hasn’t figured it out yet, shhh!)

It looks like it has a big footprint, but it actually has a smaller footprint than most highchairs with legs. Small footprint is very important to me, seeing as we don’t have a large living/dining space, and I don’t care about having a chair that folds as I know I will never bother to put it away.

You can remove the tray and use it as an ‘at the table’ seat. We’ve done this a few times, although I really am a big fan of a tray for this stage of weaning.

It encourages a much better sitting position than a lot of highchairs we’ve used. Even at just five months, Rory was well supported in the 3Sixti, and the placement of the inbetween-the-legs-bit means that he is unable to slump in the chair. It’s really important to me that my children have good posture and sit up straight when they are eating.

Arlo likes to get up close and personal with Rory, leaning on his chair whilst Rory is eating, and so I can safely say that this chair has well and truly passed the older sibling test. There is no way that Arlo could tip this chair over.

Things that I don’t like about the 3Ssixti:

I’ve asked Sam for his opinion, and between us, the general consensus is that on first glance we thought the 3Sixti might be a little bulky, with a few too many nooks and crannies and unnecessary features. We thought we would test it for a month or so, then move on to a highchair more suited to our needs. The actuality is that we’ve been using it for the past four months as Rory’s only highchair, and it fulfills its purpose pretty perfectly. There is only really one thing that I would change, and that is the straps.

I don’t like highchairs with straps. Forgetting the fact that they need to be regularly removed to be cleaned, messing around with a fiddly five point harness loses vital time in the event of a choking situation. I need to know that I can swiftly lift my child out of their chair in one move. I have had to do this with Arlo in the past, and I am sure I will have to do this with Rory too.

For this fact alone, I was uncomfortable using the 3Sixti, especially with a new weaner. That was until I realised that, technically, I don’t have to use the harness. I don’t know if it’s what Cosatto would recommend, but the way the connectors are designed means that you can clip the straps in as just a waist belt – meaning it’s just one quick click before you can removeyour child from the seat. I have also been putting Rory in and not using the straps at all. The tray and the in-between-leg bit (I don’t know what to call this?!) prevent him from falling out. I just have to make sure that I don’t forget he’s not strapped in when it comes to removing the tray for cleaning. Of course, if you plan to use the chair without the tray, then you do need to use the straps.

As regular readers will know, Arlo was (and still is) a Tripp Trapp baby, so although I don’t want this to be purely a comparison post (the two chairs are designed to serve quite different purposes), I do want to spend a bit of time talking about the 3Sixti compared to the Tripp Trapp. Both chairs have played a central part in our mealtime routine, and of course I have my opinions on their functionality.

I’ve written before about how I love the Tripp Trapp as a chair for older children, but that I don’t think it’s the ideal highchair – it isn’t the best for weaning babies (unless you can afford a further £50 for the add-on tray, which pushes the total cost from indulgent to outright ridiculous in my opinion).

Although the plan has always been to get Rory a Tripp Trapp like Arlo once he is a toddler, I hesitate when I think about changing his chair just yet. For now, The 3Sixti is a lot more convenient in many ways.

When not in use, I can adjust the 3Sixti to its lowest height, and the whole thing slides right under the table, tray and all. When the baby set is on the Tripp Trapp, it won’t slide under the table, so the Cosatto 3Sixti actually takes up less space.

Tripp Trapp (without baby set), and Cosatto 3Sixti2 (with tray attached) both tucked under the table as far as they will go:

Although there is the option to have Rory sit at the table (with or without the tray), the tray means that I can move him AWAY from the table, which has proved more useful than I thought – a lot of the time I don’t want him within grabbing reach of Arlo’s non-baby friendly meals of spaghetti hoops and other sugary, processed fussy toddler fodder.

As the highchair stands alone and has its own tray, it means I can move it away from the table and into line with the kitchen doorway so I can keep a watchful eye on Rory eating whilst also getting a bit of washing up done.

Rory has a higher success rate of keeping food ON the tray as opposed to Arlo at that age, using the Tripp Trapp straight at the table – a LOT of food got pushed onto the floor with one, clean swipe of a baby arm. With a proper highchair, and a tray, it feels like we are having a much easier job with weaning this time round.

Where I lose time with the 3Sixti with it not being quite so easy to clean, I gain it back by there not being so much food to pick up off the floor, and by by not having to clear a large space at the table before every meal (our dining table is always half-covered in junk. Fact.)

Right now, the Cosatto 3Sixti is proving much more convenient than I had imagined. I’m not quite ready to give it up yet. And that says a lot.

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The 3Sixti highchair retails at £165.00. We were provided with the Cosatto 3Sixti for the purpose of this review.