Nomi Highchair Review
I saw the Nomi Highchair at Harrogate Nursery Show and immediately fell in love with it. Sometimes you see a product and you are completely in tune with the design and it gets under your skin and stays in your head.
The Nomi had that effect on me. So I asked as many questions as I could and really did my homework on this product. We had been originally considering choosing a Stokke Tripp Trapp, but that was before I became aware of the Nomi. Interestingly, both the Tripp Trapp and the Nomi are designed by the same person, the enigmatic Norwegian Peter Opsvik, one of the finest furniture designers in the world.
Peter Opsvik originally designed the Stokke Tripp Trapp in 1972 and returned to highchairs around 40 years later to create something that would lead the way once more in baby highchair design…and so the Nomi was born.
The revolution in design is clear to see, and some of the features are so subtle and yet so brilliant. The Nomi also does not look like a baby chair and the idea of our little one being able to use it right through childhood possibly into adulthood was appealing. She will be able to do without feeling like she is sitting in a baby chair.
The Nomi is tested to 100kg of weight, and it appears that the test is a push test with 100kg which is performed around 25,000 times. It is also tested with 130kg around 5,000 times. During the test process no screws loosened so the durability of the product is not in question.
Quite incredible considering how lightweight the chair is at around 4.7kg.
The look of the product, along with some of the safety features (which will be explored below) and the choice of wood and colours were the main reasons why we chose Nomi. In fact, for choice of wood I noticed that other wooden highchairs tend to still use beechwood which has kind of had its day now, certainly when you consider the interiors of most modern homes. We have mostly oak at home, or at least oak effect as oak is darn pricey. The Nomi would be able to blend in nicely with the flooring at home as they use oak for the wood (walnut too, if you prefer). The colour choices for the plastics were also really lovely, and we ended up going for splash of colour with Lime, which is actually more of an olivey-lime to be honest.
So, onto the grand unboxing…lovely packaging by the way…
The entire contents of the actual highchair come in one very neatly packaged carton. We also got the Tray accessory which is just one unit that clips on to the finished Nomi, but more on that later.
The instructions were clear enough on how to assemble the Nomi Highchair, and the process is very logical. You start with the feet being attached to the wooden spine and work your way up the highchair to the top. There aren’t too many parts and you don’t really need any extra tools (but read on).
There was only one sticking point in the assembly process and that was the when it came to tightening up the hex keys to finish the attachment of the legs to the stem. It was a bit of a pain until I realised that you have to tighten both sides at the same time.
I have made a video of the assembly process and I will share that at the bottom of this post in case it is useful to any of you.
It was great watching the product slowly take shape throughout the build, and the whole process took around 15 minutes from start to finish.
The hex keys that you need to complete the assembly are included with the product, and there are two handy hidden clips underneath the seat base that you use to store the keys for future. If you have a set of hex keys already in the house then I would recommend that you keep them close by as every now and again the included keys were a bit faffy. They fit and do the job, but you might be able to build the chair easier if you try some alternatives.
I have heard that you can request a set of longer hex keys from Nomi free of charge which are better suited for this job. They don’t fit under the seat base though so will probably end up in THAT kitchen drawer where all the other small bits & bobs get kept!
The hex keys is really all I can grumble about for this product, and it is only a slight moan rather than a problem.
Once the wooden spine and feet were put together everything else just slotted in and screwed tight with the very easy to use plastic knobs. The attachment of the feet into the spine took around 10 minutes and the second part where the footrest and seat unit attach took about 5 minutes.
The way the footrest and seat works is one of the great features of the Nomi as they are soooo easy to adjust through the life of the product. With some other wooden highchairs, as soon as you need to adjust it you have to go and get the toolkit out and start using screwdrivers to untighten and take bits of to then have to attach them and tighten it all up again and it can be a real faff. With the Nomi everything adjusts by loosening the plastic screw knobs, sliding to the new position and then tightening it up again.
There are two adjustable areas; the seat base and the footrest as shown here:
The design of the slope of the spine allows you to create a deeper seat unit as your child grows and it is so easy to find the right position – it takes seconds.
Once the footrest, seat base and back support are attached then the final piece of the puzzle was to clip in the ‘Mini’ accessory which is what turns the Nomi into the finished highchair.
Then it was time to stand back and admire the product!
So, building it was easy enough and it feels absolutely solid once that is done.
There is a key safety feature of this product that is worth pointing out as tilting can be a concern with some highchairs (but not this one).
At the back of the rear of the feet some castors have been added to help prevent the chair from tilting. These are anti-tilt castors so if your child puts his or her feet up onto the edge of the table and pushes back then the chair will roll backwards and remain upright rather than tilting backwards and causing an accident.
This feature naturally is likely to only work on wooden floors, lino or thin carpets – I don’t think it will work on a deep carpet but it is unlikely that you would have that sort of flooring in your dining room?
Also worthy of note is the fact that a child is able to actually turn around in this chair which is not the case with many others. I don’t mean that they can do a full 180 degree turn, but they can at least turn partly sideways which is completely natural.
Peter Opsvik always tries to encourage movement in children and when they need to sit down it is important that they can still move around. The Nomi promotes this while still being a very, very safe highchair and chair to use.
The height of the product is pretty much perfect for use with the usual range of dining tables and this is really valuable to me as bringing children around the dining table is a very important part of family life. No reason why this shouldn’t start when the child is a baby.
A final note about the brand and the manufacturing of this product. The wooden stem of the Nomi highchair involves a lot of craft and work to create and you will appreciate the design of it when you get up close. Nomi replants every tree that gets cut down to create the wood that they use for the spine. All of the plastic parts are also recyclable.
I have read online that one of Peter Opsvik’s beliefs is that he wants to give things to children but not to take away from nature.
Well, with this product he has given something wonderful to families as well as children – it is as good as I had hoped, perhaps even better.
The final test was to see what baby M thought of it, and this picture clearly shows that she was comfortable and happy with it and she is also demonstrating the Tray accessory too (which she likes to pat loudly, a lot, with both hands).
The Tray simply slides onto the Nomi in a couple of seconds and clicks into place. Removing it is just as easy. It is very easy to clean and any spills wipes away instantly. It is also fine to be properly washed and is dishwasher safe also.
We have been using the chair for around 3 weeks now at the time of writing and no gripes have surfaced and it has taken some hammer in that time.
I look forward to this chair being a part of the family for our little lady throughout most of her life and I really hope she still wants to use it when she is all grown up.
You can find out more about the Nomi on the official Evomove website.
They do have a new Twitter account and also a new UK Facebook page has launched. There is also a really lovely video that Nomi made and you can watch that on YouTube (love the song they use!).
Thank you for reading my Nomi Highchair review. As promised, here is the video I made that shows you how to assemble the Nomi Highchair – hope you find it useful if you end up getting one 🙂
Disclosure – I discussed reviewing this product with the distributor and they gave me a reduction on my purchase of the highchair in return for a review. This is a full and honest write up – it really is a beautiful product. I will update the review if through future use I come across any issues, but for now it has performed flawlessly.