IKEA Antilop

A high chair has exactly one real job: containing a food explosion three times a day and being clean again in under a minute. The Antilop's seat is a single molded piece of plastic — no seams, no fabric, no crevices — which is why it wipes down in seconds and why parents routinely hose it off in the yard. It is also, not coincidentally, the chair almost every café and restaurant buys: the people who clean high chairs professionally already ran this experiment for you.

The detail that surprises people: parents who own it consistently report it made mealtimes more pleasant than chairs costing five to ten times more — not despite the simplicity, but because of it. The one honest complaint from long-term owners is that the tray takes real force to pull off; you learn the knack in a week. The legs detach for storage, and there is nothing on the chair that can wear out, stain permanently, or need a replacement cover.

This is the one category where the cheapest product is also the best one, which is why this slot has no budget pick — there is nothing to trade down to. The $300 wooden chairs are beautiful and trap food in their joints; buying the $25 chair that professionals buy leaves the difference for the slots where money actually buys longevity.