The MiChair Blogger Edit: Freya

Welcome to The Blogger Edit – a new series that showcases the versatility of iCandy products for different families and different lifestyles. Part one focuses on the iCandy MiChair – iCandy’s stylish highchair that turns into a beautifully crafted piece of furniture for your child.

Four different families chose an iCandy MiChair and different coloured comfort pack to style in their unique home in their unique way and the results demonstrate that the functional and contemporary piece of furniture works for any home and any family dynamic.

In this blog, we meet Freya and find out how the iCandy MiChair has been invaluable for life with two under two and is the inspiration for the interior design within her dream family home...

"When we brought our second child home from hospital, almost everything we needed was already in place, on account of our little boy having only just turned two and us having kept everything that we had used for him. It's true what they say; your first child changes your whole life, but your second child fits nicely into the life you already have. And this was the case for us; we were much more prepared — both mentally and practically— for how our life would change with a little baby this time around, and that included having most of the equipment and baby paraphernalia that one needs (plus loads we don't need).

One thing, however, that we hadn't had to think about before was protecting one child from another. This time around, with a boisterous two year old flinging himself around our small London flat, we quickly realised that we were going to need somewhere safe to dock our new baby. 

There are literally hundreds of chairs and bouncers for newborns to choose from, and I think we probably have about 90% of them in our flat, handed down to us from various relatives and well-wishers. Canvas bouncers, rocking bouncers, animal shaped bouncers, you name it, we have them crammed into our home. However, I quickly realised that all of them were designed to be used on the floor, or on the sofa at best, which would be fine if our daughter were our only child, but with the ever-present danger of her well-meaning but overzealous brother, we simply couldn't risk her being at a level that he could reach. So when we saw the iCandy MiChair, it seemed to answer our prayers. Thankfully, iCandy gave us one to try out when our daughter was still only a few weeks old, and I was literally counting down the days until it arrived, as until then, I had nowhere that I could safely put her down if I wanted to get something from the kitchen, do some chores or make my toddler some food (you know, all those glamorous things that stay-at-home-parents get to do).

The beauty of the iCandy MiChair is that it raises the baby up and out of the reach of our toddler, and indeed when the baby's in it, he forgets she's there and stops trying to grab, headbutt or generally annoy her. The iCandy MiChair is several chairs in one really, and the separate Newborn Pod stands out as way sturdier and robust than any of its competitors in the collection of baby bouncers we seem to have amassed, both in its frame construction and the durable, high quality material used in its comfy, padded seat. 

It has strong, secure straps to keep baby in place too, and a toy holder where you can hang something to dangle above baby and keep her entertained. What is genius though is the fact that this isn't just a baby bouncer raised up high. It clicks onto the high chair that she'll be able to use a few months down the line when she's old enough to start weaning, so you don't get that sinking feeling that you're spending money on something that you'll only use for her first few months; it's the chair that keeps on giving!

It's probably worth mentioning that the iCandy MiChair is incredibly stylish too. Its Scandi, minimalist design and trendy slate grey upholstery (we chose "Flint" but they also do a range of other colour palettes) would make a great addition to any design-conscious home. If it weren't for the fact that our smallish flat looks like a toy box collided with a washing basket and caused a catastrophic explosion in our living room, it would be incredibly Insta-friendly. I fought the onslaught of garish baby stuff for several months after I had my first baby, desperately clinging onto the minimalist style of my riverview city flat for as long as I could, before I finally gave in and allowed function to triumph over form. 

Our interior 'style' now consists of loud colourful play mats covering the entire floor of our living space, a plastic chest of drawers in loud primary colours housing my son's collection of Duplo, huge plastic toy boxes dotted around the room and the beautiful round glass table I once had as a centre piece in front of the window converted into a nappy changing station. For the photos in this blog I spent hours hauling cluttered mess out of the way in order to provide the chair with the backdrop it deserves, but I imagine that for many families living in actual houses (rather than a sq ft all-in-one living-kitchen-dining spaces) the iCandy MiChair could sit stylishly in a dedicated spot, like a statement piece that you picked up while on a mini-break in Copenhagen. 

For first-time parents who have not yet succumbed to this tidal wave of garish clashing colours and mountains of plastic toys, the iCandy MiChair will do no damage to your current enviable interior style. I still dream of the day when we can move into a house with more space, and now that we have the MiChair, which really deserves to be somewhere as beautiful as it is, I have even more motivation to make that happen.

After trying the high chair function, I took the legs off and let my son try out the toddler seat over by his reading library. Again, he loved the novelty of having a special chair all of his own, and with the detachable upholstery in place, it certainly looked as cosy and comfy as the Newborn Pod is for our daughter. I am looking forward to using the chair for this function more as my daughter grows out of needing the Newborn Pod, and again, its a breath of fresh air to have a baby/child product that looks gorgeous instead of garish.

All in all, the iCandy MiChair has been a welcome addition to our home of "two under two', especially given that I delivered our latest addition by emergency C-Section and have been less mobile than I would have liked during the recovery period. It has been a challenge to look after two tiny children, but the height of the Newborn Pod docked onto the iCandy MiChair has made it easy to pick the baby up and put her down, as I haven't needed to stoop down too low, which is an added bonus alongside the aforementioned toddler protection aspect. 

The main challenges we've faced over the last six weeks since the baby was born have been how to function on lack of sleep (coffee), how to deal with the Terrible Twos of toddlerhood (learning the art of distraction, and getting Alexa to play nursery rhymes on demand), how to deal with the mental and physical recovery from an unplanned caesarean (embrace the changes and the healing process, and celebrate the wins) and how to get into a routine with the newborn whereby you have some snippets of time to get things done (learn how to nail nap time!). Oh, and what to call the new baby! Thankfully we managed to come to an agreement on all FIVE of her names [covers face with hand with embarrassment] and got her registered within the allotted time: WINNING