Mummy Must Have Review | Mumma's Little Helpers Food Catcher

I've mentioned in the past that bub has always been a relatively good eater. She pretty much eats anything I put in front of her, with the exception of cherry tomatoes, she gags endlessly with those. I've never had too much of an issue with getting her to eat all her food, thank god. Although she has discovered how to get away with not eating her food lately, thanks to sickness.

It seems when she's sick she loses her appetite and some nights just flat out refuses to eat dinner at all. But she's smart. She doesn't just sit there and throw a tantrum hoping to be let out of her chair (because that would be completely futile on her part). Instead, she pretends to eat her food, putting it to her mouth and then quickly flicking it off to the side so it lands on the floor. Its quite stealthy. Unless you're watching her every move you can't really tell what she's doing and it looks like she's still eating all her food. But on closer inspection it becomes obvious she's just redecorated the floor in a really creative way. I'm partly impressed by her creative genius and then partly pissed because I have a huge mess to clean up. Thankfully I've now discovered the food catcher which has foiled her plans.

Image | Mumma's Little Helpers

ABOUT THE FOOD CATCHER

The food catcher is a revolutionary Australian made product designed by a mum to help save parents sanity at meal times. It's essentially a material cape that attaches to high chairs in order to catch any food that is accidentally (or purposely) dropped onto the floor. The food catcher stops messy eaters getting food all over the floor after each meal, meaning less clean up time for mum (or dad) and less stress during the dreaded arsenic hour before bed time.

The food catcher is suitable for any four legged high chair and attaches to the tray, back of the chair and around the legs with velcro. Its waterproof and can be wiped clean or machine washed when needed. The food catcher comes in a waterproof storage pouch (as pictured above) which could also be used as a wet bag for swimming or for water bottles. It also comes with all velcro required to attach the product to your existing high chair.

TIP: It can be made portable by buying extra bits of velcro to attach to grandmas high chair, without needing to buy another food catcher.

USING THE FOOD CATCHER

I was keen to give the food catcher a go for a few reasons, firstly, I hate vacuuming so anything that limits the amount of times I need to do it is worth its weight in gold. Secondly, I don't have an average high chair so I wanted to put the "fits any 4 legged high chair" claim to the test. Thirdly, nobody really likes cleaning, so if there's a way to make the process easier I'm all for it.

This first hurdle I had was getting the food catcher to fit our high chair. We have the Infasecure feed 'n' read convertible high chair, which we inherited from my brother. It converts from a high chair into a separate chair and table and has legs that are a lot thicker than most high chairs. It's also taller than a lot of high chairs because the seat sits on top of the table. After a small amount of trial and error I got it to fit though. It actually wasn't as hard as I was expecting it to be.

To make it fit our high chair I had to put it through the legs above the base of the table frame because our chair is a lot higher than most. I also had to put the velcro on the back of the chair down lower than intended. My tray is obviously wider than a standard high chair because when I velcro the food catcher right to the edges it sits flat against the edge of the tray instead of leaving a gap at the front. Its easily rectified though by sticking it to the velcro a little closer to the middle which then creates an opening at the front.

Even though our high chair has much thicker legs than many others, there's still enough velcro on the food catcher to enable it to sit properly with winged sides. There's also plenty of room at the front for her to move her legs without restriction. Since I've been using the food catcher its caught 95% of the food that she's dropped. The only food it hasn't caught was a few bits of rice bubbles that were stuck to the front of her which fell off once I got her out of the high chair, so I can't really blame that on any fault of the product.

TIP: If you have a high chair where you need to remove the tray to get your child out, leave the food catcher attached and place the tray flat on the floor while lifting your child out. Replace the tray and any food that was caught on their lap also falls straight into the catcher.

Getting food out of the food catcher is super easy. She hasn't actually dropped huge amounts so I've actually been able to just pick or scoop it out with my hand. Of course when I have the food catcher in place she decides not to throw her food everywhere (bet if I took it off she would though). If your child drops lots of food you can easily scoop it out with a bowl or shake the food catcher over the bin. Once emptied it can be quickly wiped over or washed if needed.

I usually leave the food catcher on the high chair all the time. The only time this has been an issue was one night when my cat decided to try and sleep in it. Luckily he did it in front of me before I'd gone to bed so I got him out quick smart before he damaged it. He hasn't done it again (because he knows he'll be in BIG trouble).

ABOUT MUMMA'S LITTLE HELPERS

Mumma's Little Helpers is an Australian business based in Sydney. It was only launched in January 2015 and has already experienced rapid growth. Mumma's Little Helpers endeavours to create products that make day to day life easier for mums. The business was created after founding director Lyndsey came up with the idea of the food catcher. They also sell padded high chair hoods and plan on adding more products to the range in the future.

Mumma's Little Helpers is also a very environmentally aware company and deliberately don't use any disposable packaging. The food catcher pouch is made from fabric off-cuts to minimise wastage and is reusable. Product instructions are also printed on recycled paper.

MY OVERALL OPINION OF THE FOOD CATCHER

The food catcher has been a welcome addition to our household and has certainly decreased the amount of cleaning I need to do after her meals even though she hasn't dropped a huge amount of food in it. Considering bub's relatively good on the food front, I can only imagine how much time it would save for mums with really messy eaters.

Lyndsey has worked really hard on the design to ensure that it does indeed fit all 4 legged high chairs. Given that I probably have the most bulky 4 legged one available I'd definitely back that claim.

The fabric is really good quality and durable so I think its definitely worth the $39.95 price tag. I think mums of 6mth + babies and toddlers would definitely benefit from this product, especially those pursuing baby led weaning. The only limitation is if your child can throw food quite a distance (but hopefully they haven't mastered that talent at such a young age).

The good news is, if you're struggling with messy meal times and need one of these in your life, Mumma's Little Helpers have a special 10% off offer for Finding Myself Young readers. Simply enter the code FMY when ordering via mummaslittlehelpers.com.au. 

Toni x

Disclosure - I was sent a Food Catcher to provide feedback to Mumma's Little Helpers founding director Lyndsey. All opinions expressed in this review are my own based on my experience using the product. I did not receive payment for this review.

Linking with Jess