Rocking Chair

Ian’s latest bad habit is rocking in his high chair. I strap him in his seat, give him a mouthful of whatever gruel is on the menu, and he passes the time until the next spoonful by rocking back and forth. He leans forward, throws himself back tipping the chair about 10-degrees, lets the chair rock back to equilibrium, and repeats. If he would show the same tenacity with reading, we’d be up to Shel Silverstein books by now.

Letting a child rock his high chair off the ground probably sounds horribly dangerous to strangers reading this blog. High chairs are supposed to be wide-based and sturdy contraptions where nothing bad could possibly happen no matter how hard the child thrashes in his seat. Let me assure you, especially those of you with connections to child protective services, that he is in danger of nothing more serious than possibly scaring the bejeebers out of himself.

Their “high” chairs are the space-saving variety meant to strap onto existing kitchen chairs. That usage didn’t save enough space for us, so instead we put their chairs on the floor and stack them on a counter when not in use. When they sit in their chairs, their heads are about 18-inches off the ground. Even if a chair tipped over and someone whacked his head on the floor, it’s not a great distance to fall. They’d hit the ground with more force if they were to fall from standing, which they do several times a day. Falling while confined to a heavily padded chair would be one of the more pleasant sensations they experience in a typical day.

Plus, those chairs don’t tip back easily since their center-of-gravity is far forward. I’ve tried tipping him back when he rocks far beyond the point where his momentum could carry him, and he always springs forward safely. He looks vaguely concerned about physics aberration that stopped his chair from immediately tipping back to equilibrium, but he’s safe.

I’m still concerned that he’s going to find a way to hurt himself, though. Maybe he’ll invent a new direction to tip the chair. Maybe he’ll choke as his food jostles around his airway. Maybe he’ll shove a plastic spoon that I’m holding up his nostril during chair recoil. Whatever could happen, I try to discourage the rocking.

The best way to stop the rocking is to feed them faster; he can’t rock when he’s trying to put a spoon in his mouth. This method has its limitations since I have to alternatively feed Ian and Tory no matter how large a weight disparity Tory puts on his brother. Ian rocks while Tory eats. It hurts our feeding speed that they’ve entered a curious phase where they like to examine their food before eating it by staring at it, poking it, and shaking it off the spoon and onto the floor.

That leaves physical restraint as my primary deterrence. It’s not like a do anything traumatic by holding him down with a full-body block; that just makes him scream and he can’t eat while screaming. I simply put by hand on his forehead, preventing him from leaning forward and disrupting the entire rocking locomotion. I usually resort to this when he becomes too enthusiastic about rocking, completely ignoring the spoon and threatening to test the limitations of the chair’s center-of-gravity protection. I stop the rocking, he rediscovers his meal, and we return to eating. The sooner they finish their meal, the sooner they can resume playing, running around, and likely falling face first into furniture.