Assessed on specification, 30 July 2026. Prices are as at 30 July 2026, lowest listed Australian retail.
The Bugaboo Giraffe is a beechwood chair listed at $379, and at that price it is a chair and nothing else. Add the baby set at $109 and it becomes a high chair. It takes the highest Bench Score in our high chair field, 8.5, on the strength of its materials and its adjustment range rather than its price. This is the chair for the parent who wants one seat an adult can still sit in, not a seat that gets donated when the tray comes off.
The case for it
The materials are the argument. Bugaboo lists FSC-certified European beechwood for the frame and ISCC-certified bio-based materials elsewhere, and it rates the chair to 100kg. That number does more work than any other figure on the spec sheet. A 15kg limit means a chair with a three-year job. A 100kg limit means the chair outlives the high chair phase entirely and becomes a desk chair, then a dining chair for a grown adult. Nothing else in this field is rated anywhere near it. The next best claim is the Mothers Choice Willow’s 60kg, and the Kaylula Ava Forever stops at 45kg.
That is why the Giraffe scores 9.5 for longevity and adjustability, and 9.5 for build and materials. No other chair in this category scores above 9.0 on either measure.
Adjustment is the second argument. Bugaboo claims tool-free adjustment in one second for seat and footrest height. That claim matters more than it sounds. The 90-degree seating position that makes solids easier only holds if the footplate keeps moving as your child’s legs get longer, and a chair that needs an Allen key gets adjusted rarely instead of often. The bundle version adds an adjustable seat and footrest with a 5-point harness, and Bugaboo publishes the baby set as suitable from 6 to 36 months up to 15kg.
The accessory range is coherent, which is rarer than it should be. The newborn set covers 0 to 6 months to a 9kg limit and includes a 5-point harness plus attachment indicators that show when it is seated correctly. The baby set picks up at 6 months with its own 5-point harness and runs to 36 months. The chair alone then carries on from 36 months to adult. There is no gap in that sequence and no stage where you are told to buy a different product, which is the whole promise of a growing chair and the reason it earns the longevity score it does.
Cleaning is respectable without leading the field. The tray in the complete bundle is dishwasher safe, and the baby set is rated dishwasher safe up to 65 degrees, which is a specific published figure rather than a vague claim. It scores 8.0 for cleanability. The pillow set, if you buy it at $69, is water and stain repellent and machine washable at 30 degrees.
Footprint sits at 7.5. It has no fold, so it lives where you put it, but it is a chair-shaped chair rather than a splayed plastic frame, which is why it beats the Kaylula Ava on this measure.
The case against it
The $379 headline is not the price of a working high chair. At $379 Bugaboo lists the Giraffe as suitable from 36 months and beyond as a chair. To feed a six-month-old you need the baby set at $109, which brings you to $488 before a tray. The complete bundle, which includes the chair base, baby set and tray, is $469. That is $19 less than the chair plus the baby set bought on their own, and you get the tray thrown in, so buying the base chair on its own and adding parts later is the expensive mistake to avoid.
The stacking continues. A newborn set for 0 to 6 months, rated to 9kg, is another $199. The baby pillow set is $69 and the junior pillow is $59. A Giraffe configured from birth with cushions is a $737 chair before you have wiped anything off it. That is $42 short of the Leander Louie newborn bundle at $779, and it is why value sits at 7.5, the joint-lowest sub-score on the card.
There is no fold. If your kitchen is small enough that a chair permanently occupying floor space is a problem, look at the Maxi Cosi Moa or the Baby Studio Super Slim, which scores 9.0 for footprint on its one-hand flat fold. The Giraffe does not compete there and does not try to.
The published detail is also thinner than the price suggests. Bugaboo tells you the adjustment is tool-free and takes one second, but it does not publish how many height positions the seat and footplate actually have. Maxi Cosi publishes 9 height positions, 5 recline positions and 4 tray positions for the $319 Minla, and that specificity is worth something when you are comparing two chairs in a browser tab at eleven at night. Bugaboo publishes no recline setting for the Giraffe either, which is consistent with a chair meant for a baby who already sits unaided, but it does mean the newborn set is doing all the work in the earliest months.
Bugaboo also does not publish a chair weight in Australian retail listings, and neither do most of its rivals here, so nobody in this field gets credit for portability on paper. If you plan to move the chair between rooms daily, that gap is worth resolving in a shop before you buy.
How it compares
Kaylula Ava Forever High Chair Beech, $329. The direct threat, and the cheaper one. The Ava is also European beechwood, it is also height-adjustable with interchangeable seat and footplates, and at $329 it includes the timber tray, the click-on washable food tray, a safety bar and a 5-point harness. There is nothing else to buy. Against the Bugaboo bundle at $469, that is $140 in your pocket for a chair that does the same job through the same years. The trade is longevity and rigidity: the Ava is rated to 45kg against the Giraffe’s 100kg, and it takes 8.0 for build against the Giraffe’s 9.5. Its stability legs front and back also give it a wider stance, which is why it scores 6.5 for footprint against 7.5. It scores 8.2 overall and takes Best value in our field, with the highest value sub-score of any chair here at 9.0. If the budget is the constraint, this is the honest recommendation, and it is not the Bugaboo.
Cybex Lemo2 3-in-1 High Chair, $499. The closest premium rival, and it includes the chair, baby set and tray in the box. Cybex claims one-handed seat and depth adjustment and a service life running to adulthood, which is the same pitch the Giraffe makes. It scores 8.0 overall. It loses to the Giraffe on cleanability, 7.5 against 8.0, because Cybex publishes no dishwasher-safe parts, and it costs $30 more than the Giraffe bundle. Buying up to the Lemo2 makes sense only if you want the $149 training tower, which turns the same chair into a kitchen bench platform. No Bugaboo accessory in this pack does that.
UPPAbaby Ciro High Chair, $299. The opposite philosophy. The Ciro takes Easiest to clean in our field with 9.0 for cleanability on its seam-free seat, fully removable food-resistant harness and dishwasher-safe tray. It is $170 cheaper than the Giraffe bundle and it is ready to use as bought. But UPPAbaby rates it from 4 months to 3 years, or 15kg, and that is the whole life of the product. It scores 6.0 for longevity, well behind every chair here built to outlast the toddler stage, and 7.6 overall. Buy it if you value the few years you will actually spend scraping yoghurt out of seams more than the years afterwards that you will not.
Verdict
The Giraffe wins this field on the two things that are hardest to fake on a spec sheet: what it is made of and how long it stays useful. A 100kg rating on FSC-certified beech is a genuinely different product from a seat that is finished at 15kg, and the one-second tool-free adjustment is the feature that decides whether a growing chair actually gets grown. On paper it deserves the top score.
What it does not deserve is an unqualified recommendation at $379, because $379 does not buy a high chair. Buy the complete bundle at $469 or do not buy the Giraffe at all. And be honest with yourself about the 100kg figure: it is only worth the premium if you intend to keep a piece of furniture long after the tray comes off for good. If you do not, the Kaylula Ava at $329 gets you the same beechwood and the same adjustable-through-childhood design for $140 less, complete, and it is the better buy for most families reading this.
| Bench Score card | Bugaboo Giraffe High Chair |
|---|---|
| Longevity & adjustability | 9.5 |
| Cleanability | 8.0 |
| Build & materials | 9.5 |
| Footprint | 7.5 |
| Value | 7.5 |
| Overall | 8.5 |
Bench Score 8.5. Award: Best overall. Assessed on specification, 30 July 2026.
Disclosure: Babyhood, which sells the Kaylula range in Australia, is an agency client of The Baby Bench’s owner, Xpand Digital. Client status does not buy a score or an award, and the Kaylula Ava is placed second here because that is where its score puts it.
Evidence record
Sources checked
Product specifications, claims and Australian pricing were checked against the following sources for this assessment. Prices and availability can change after publication.