Setting up your IKEA highchair for baby-led weaning is one of the most important things you can do before your baby's first meal.
Get it right, and your little one sits upright, feels stable, and can focus on exploring food with their hands. Get it wrong, and you're dealing with slumping, squirming, and a baby who'd rather wriggle out of the chair than eat. We've helped thousands of Australian families set up their IKEA Antilop for BLW, and the difference a proper setup makes is genuinely remarkable.
This guide walks you through the four key steps to transform your basic Antilop into the perfect baby-led weaning station — plus a checklist, common mistakes, and answers to the questions we hear most.
Why Your IKEA Highchair Setup Matters for BLW
Baby-led weaning asks a lot of your baby. They need to sit upright, reach for food, grasp it, bring it to their mouth, chew, and swallow — all while staying balanced in a chair. If your baby's body is working overtime just to stay stable, there's less energy left for the actual eating part.
That's where the 90-90-90 rule comes in. Feeding therapists and occupational therapists recommend that your baby's hips, knees, and ankles each sit at roughly 90 degrees during meals. This position gives them a stable base, keeps their airway open for safe swallowing, and frees up their hands for self-feeding. Raising Children Network, Australia's national parenting resource, notes that proper seating posture supports better eating habits from the very start of solids.
The IKEA Antilop is brilliant for BLW because it's lightweight, easy to clean (you can literally hose it down), and the tray pops off for quick washing. But straight out of the box, it's missing footrest support, the seat is hard plastic, and the bare metal legs scratch your floors. A few targeted upgrades solve all of these — and the whole setup takes about five minutes.
Think of it this way: you wouldn't ask an adult to eat dinner perched on a bar stool with their feet dangling. Your baby deserves the same consideration. A properly set up highchair isn't a luxury; it's the foundation for safe, confident self-feeding.
Step 1: Choose the Right Footrest Height
If you only do one thing to prepare your IKEA highchair for baby-led weaning, make it this. A footrest is the single most impactful upgrade you can make for your baby's eating posture, comfort, and safety.
Without a footrest, your baby's feet dangle in mid-air. Their body instinctively feels unstable, so they kick, squirm, lean on the tray for support, and lose focus on food. We hear it from parents every week: "We added the footrest and our baby sat still for the first time."
Our adjustable bamboo footrest clips onto the standard Antilop legs in about 30 seconds and adjusts as your child grows from 6 months right through toddlerhood. It's the accessory our customers mention most in their reviews — and the one they say they wish they'd bought sooner.
Quick test: Once the footrest is fitted, sit your baby in the chair. Their feet should press flat against the footrest with their knees roughly level with or slightly below their hips. If their knees are pushed up too high, lower the footrest a notch. If their feet barely reach, raise it.
Want a deeper look at why this matters? Our guide on highchair footrest benefits and the 90-90-90 rule covers the evidence in detail.
Step 2: Add a Cushion for Smaller Babies
The Antilop seat is designed to fit children up to about 3 years old, which means at 6 months, there's often a gap between your baby and the backrest. A cushion fills that gap, giving smaller babies the snug, supported feeling they need to sit upright and focus on food rather than on balancing.
A good highchair cushion does three things for BLW:
- Fills the space — positions your baby closer to the tray so they can actually reach their food
- Adds comfort — soft padding on hard plastic makes longer mealtimes more pleasant
- Supports posture — helps maintain that upright position feeding therapists recommend
Our cushion covers are made from cotton canvas that's both machine washable and wipeable — because when you're doing baby-led weaning, things get messy. They come in colours and patterns that match your kitchen, and they're designed with openings for the Antilop harness straps so you don't lose any safety features.
A tip from our experience: don't choose a cushion that's too thick. You still need the harness to fit snugly, and you want your baby sitting at the right height relative to the tray. A cushion that's 2-3cm thick is usually the sweet spot.
As your baby grows and fills more of the seat naturally, you might find you no longer need the cushion for positioning — but many families keep it for comfort right through to toddlerhood.
Step 3: Fit a Silicone Placemat to the Tray
Baby-led weaning means your baby is handling food themselves — picking it up, squishing it, tasting it, dropping it (sometimes on purpose, sometimes not). A silicone placemat on your Antilop tray makes this whole process smoother for everyone.
Here's what a placemat does for your BLW setup:
- Stops food sliding — the silicone surface gives food enough grip for little fingers to practise their pincer grasp
- Contains the mess — raised edges catch purees, liquids, and rolling peas before they hit the floor
- Protects the tray — no more tomato stains or knife marks on white plastic
- Dishwasher safe — toss it in with the bottles at the end of the day
According to Solid Starts, a stable eating surface helps babies build confidence with self-feeding from their very first meals. When food stays put instead of sliding across a smooth tray, your baby can focus on the skill of picking it up rather than chasing it.
Our silicone placemat is designed to fit the Antilop tray exactly — full coverage, food-grade silicone, and available in colours that coordinate with our cushion covers and leg wraps if you like a matched look.
Pro tip: If you're starting BLW with purees alongside finger foods (a combination approach many families choose), the placemat's raised edges are especially handy for containing the messier textures while your baby experiments.
Step 4: Complete the Look with Leg Wraps
Leg wraps are the finishing touch that takes your Antilop from "budget highchair" to "thoughtful kitchen furniture." But they're not just cosmetic — they serve a practical purpose too.
The Antilop's bare metal legs scratch timber, tile, and laminate floors every time the chair gets bumped, pulled, or nudged (which happens multiple times per meal when you've got a baby learning to eat). Our wood-look leg wraps solve this with a peel-and-stick vinyl that protects your floors and looks genuinely good.
For your BLW setup, leg wraps also reduce the scraping noise when you pull the chair in and out for meals. Less noise means one less thing startling your baby during a meal — and we know from experience that a sudden screech of metal on tile can derail an otherwise calm feeding session.
Application takes about five minutes for all four legs. If you're fitting a footrest at the same time, attach the footrest first, then apply the wraps — this way the clamps sit neatly over the wrap material and the seams stay hidden.
They come in several wood-grain finishes — walnut, birch, and bamboo — so you can match your kitchen cabinetry or dining furniture. Small detail, but parents tell us it's the upgrade that gets the most compliments from visitors.
The Perfect BLW Highchair Setup Checklist
Before your baby's first BLW meal, run through this checklist. We use it ourselves and we recommend it to every parent we talk to.
You don't need every item on this list to start BLW. A footrest and proper positioning are the essentials. But the more boxes you can tick, the smoother your first meals will be.
Want a printable version of this plus a full starting solids guide? Download our free starting solids checklist PDF.
Common BLW Highchair Setup Mistakes
We see the same setup mistakes come up again and again in our community. Here are the ones that matter most — and how to fix them.
Mistake #1: No footrest. This is by far the most common. The Antilop doesn't come with one, so many parents don't think about it. But dangling feet mean an unstable body, which means less eating and more wriggling. A footrest is always step one.
Mistake #2: Baby too far from the tray. If there's a big gap between your baby's tummy and the tray, they'll lean forward to reach food and lose their stable base. Use a cushion behind them to close the gap, or adjust the harness so they sit snugly.
Mistake #3: Reclined position. Some parents tilt the Antilop back slightly or let baby slump. A reclined position narrows the airway and makes swallowing harder — the opposite of what you want during BLW. Always aim for fully upright.
Mistake #4: Ignoring the signs. If your baby is kicking, crossing their legs around the chair legs, or leaning heavily on the tray, they're telling you something. These are signs they need better support — usually a footrest, sometimes a cushion, occasionally both.
Mistake #5: Setting and forgetting. Your baby grows fast. The footrest height that was perfect at 6 months will need lowering by 9 months. We recommend a quick positioning check at the start of each month. It takes 30 seconds and keeps the 90-90-90 position dialled in.
For more on recognising the difference between normal gagging and choking during BLW, read our guide: Baby Gagging vs Choking: Signs, Differences and What to Do.
Frequently Asked Questions
What age can I start baby-led weaning in the IKEA Antilop?
Do I really need a footrest for baby-led weaning?
How do I know if my baby is sitting correctly for BLW?
Can I do BLW without a placemat on the Antilop tray?
What's the difference between BLW and traditional weaning for highchair setup?
How often should I adjust the footrest height?
Is the IKEA Antilop safe for baby-led weaning?
What if my baby keeps leaning forward or slumping in the Antilop?
Your Next Step
Setting up your IKEA highchair for baby-led weaning doesn't need to be complicated. Start with a footrest (the single biggest difference-maker), add a cushion if your baby is still small, fit a placemat for grip and easy cleanup, and finish with leg wraps to protect your floors.
The whole upgrade takes about five minutes and transforms the Antilop from a basic budget chair into a properly equipped BLW station. We designed every one of our accessories specifically for the IKEA Antilop, and we've tested them with our own kids — because we started this journey as BLW parents ourselves.
Browse our full range of IKEA highchair accessories to find everything you need in one place. If you're new to baby-led weaning, our essential BLW tips for getting started walks you through the feeding side of things, and our free First 100 Foods Tracker helps you keep track of what your baby has tried.
