Product Review - Joie Mimzy Snacker

It’s been about a month since our Joie Mimzy Snacker highchair was delivered. I figured it’s about time I got on with writing about it!

For J, we had one of those wooden highchairs that becomes a chair and table as the child gets older. It was difficult to get him in and out of it until Daddy P modified it by cutting the bar across the chair (it didn’t move out of place before) and added extra straps to hold it in place again when needed. It was a bit of a faff to do and I was quite disappointed with it.

I had been looking around at various web pages for a while leading up to purchasing the Mimzy Snacker. Baby A started weaning at 6 months old, but to begin with I’d sit him on my lap, in the Bumbo or even in his bouncy chair to feed him as it was only small amounts of plain food such as baby rice and porridge to begin with. I knew I had to get a highchair for him but didn’t want to make a rushed decision and regret it again.

The Happy Owls pattern

It sounds silly but the first thing that attracted me to the Mimzy Snacker was the pattern I found it available in from Mothercare. It’s called Happy Owls and immediately I liked it. I checked out the features of the highchair and decided it sounded perfect for my needs.

The Joie Mimzy Snacker has 3 recline positions – since Baby A wasn’t sitting independently yet, I felt it was important that he wasn’t harnessed into an upright sitting position. With an upright position, a slightly reclined position and a very reclined position I felt this fit the bill. It has arm rests, and a five point harness which can be completely adjusted as necessary and removed completely for easy cleaning (this point became especially good when Baby A exploded after eating lunch one day and covered the harness in parsnip and carrot vomit!).

The Joie Mimzy Snacker has a large storage basket underneath – our old highchair had no storage – and I felt this basket would be very beneficial for storage of wipes, bibs, and highchair toys. It has a one handed fold which is done by simply grabbing the handle on the seat and lifting; it really is so simple and you can do it with one hand, with a squirming baby in your other arm. When folded, it stands independently – these points sold it to me, totally; I have limited space in my house with two children, two dogs and a dragon, plus the assortment of junk accumulated after nine years of living here (Daddy P is a hoarder which doesn’t help!) Being able to fold the highchair so easily and store it was a huge bonus for me.

The tray is removable, and has a dip in it for the cup to go into; On the underside there are hand grips, so with a hand on either end of the tray you pull the grips and slide the tray onto the chair itself. It has three slots to fit into, depending on how much space your baby needs, making it ideal from a young baby first weaning right through to a toddler about to stop using a highchair altogether. On the underside of the tray is a thick plastic bar to go between the child’s legs, adding extra stability for those like Baby A who aren’t strong sitters and who just slide forwards if there’s nothing there to stop them.

The Joie Mimzy Snacker arrived in a relatively compact box, and when I opened it I was expecting it to be a complicated build process and for it to take me between half an hour to an hour to do. Instead I was admiring the finished product within 10 minutes of opening the box. It was so easy. You just unfold the chair, add the legs on for the height and attach the basket to the hooks on the legs. Then all you have to do is adjust the harness for the size of your baby and you’re done. Baby A was in it as soon as it was built so I could see how big it looked and how comfortable he seemed; he was laughing and smiling, banging his hands on the tray and loving playing with the highchair toys I put on it.

I worried that because it was so lightweight (6.1kg) it would feel flimsy and unstable, but it doesn’t at all – its sturdy and strong and I feel confident that its safe and secure. The weight means it’s easy for me to fold it and take it between the front room and the kitchen as needed, which again is what I need from it.

The other day I put Baby A in the highchair with some toys while I went to the kitchen to put dinner in the oven and sort him out something to drink. When I walked back into the room he was fast asleep and snoring. I used the recline function and laid him back and he stayed fast asleep for another half hour. I think I can say with confidence that he finds it comfortable!

I really like this highchair and rate it highly. If you’re looking for a highchair, this one should definitely be one you look at.

Maxi-Cosi Mura Plus 3 - Update

Since Baby A was born last August, I've been mostly using the Maxi-Cosi Mura Plus 3 chassis with the Folding Carrycot accessory - personal choice, the Mura Plus 3 is approved for use from birth, if you use the parent facing & most reclined seat position or if you use a Maxi-Cosi carseat on the chassis.

I love the carrycot, I must say. It looks smart and the fabric is good quality, the build feels solid. The Folding Carrycot has a lovely thick mattress and Baby A has always slept really well in it. The sun canopy provides great cover even from low winter sun, the apron and the poppers at the top to hold the fabric well up and in place even on the windiest of days, and the raincover which just slid over the whole carrycot with elasticated ease. My favourite feature has been the ability to fold it flat with such ease. Its meant that at times when we've been going out in the car, but we'll be out a while so I want Baby A to be extra comfortable, I have been able to put the chassis and carrycot in the boot of my car. Its then quick and easy when you get to your destination and unfold the carrycot again and its ready to go. I loved this feature and its good news now the carrycot is being stored away now its not going to be used anymore.

I feel a bit sad because its another part of Baby A not being quite such a little baby anymore. Sorting out his clothes has been difficult too - when he went from Tiny Baby to Newborn, then slowly onto 0-3 months ... We're on the 6-9 month size now, and he fills the Folding Carrycot when he's wearing his snowsuit for the school run so we've changed over to the seat unit.

In the box with the Mura Plus 3 chassis you get the seat unit, sun canopy, t bar, parasol clip, raincover and instructions. The Maxi-Cosi footmuff fits the Mura Plus 3 and is purchased as an additional accessory. 

All you need to do is fit the sun canopy to the seat unit, which is very simple - the black clips either side of the sun canopy slide into the black slots on either side of the seat unit, with an elasticated back section on it then attaches to it with a loop of elastic which goes around the seat adjustment handle to hold it in place regardless of which recline position the seat unit is in. Once this is done the seat can be clicked into the chassis - parent or world facing.

The Footmuff is a good size, very thickly padded and has a zip down one side and around the bottom as well as the buttons to provide extra decoration and adjust the fit of the footmuff. The outer fabric of this colour has a distinct denim type feel of thickness and durability while the inner grey fabric is a soft jersey material. It feels cosy and comfortable and I am looking forward to using it.

Maxi-Cosi Mura Plus

Thanks to the improvements on the Maxi-Cosi model upgrading from the original Mura to the Mura Plus was a no-brainer for me. All the niggles I'd had with the Mura - though I loved it - had been improved upon, and once again when I found out I was pregnant with Baby A the only choice I had to make was which colour to pick.

Maxi-Cosi Mura Plus 3 2015 Denim Hearts

The Maxi-Cosi Mura Plus offers foam filled wheels instead of air filled, so no need to pump up the tyres or worry about potential punctures wherever you’re adventuring to.

The sun canopy is enlarged and comes further around the seat unit, with an extra popper to unclip for even more coverage when needed, providing much better protection for baby whether from sun or wind.
There’s an elastic loop on the back of the sun canopy to hook onto the seat unit and hold it firmly in place. It’s much smoother and easier to unfold / fold than the older style, and it can be done one handed and quietly.

Back of seat unit - the small grey button for seat recline adjustment,
and the black surround where the sun canopy hooks in place

The seat itself remains about the same dimensionally but the change in design gives it a squarer, more spacious appearance than the original Mura, (though I found the seat unit ample size even once J reached the maximum weight limit of 15kg at almost four years old and being particularly tall) The seat adjustment clunky metal bar has been replaced with a grey button on the back of the seat that you grip and hold in to adjust the seat angle – it’s much quieter, smoother, and looks neater.  It still offers an adjustable handlebar so it’s easy for me to push as well as Daddy P, who is six foot something and when he’s walking has a very long stride (some pushchairs offer a high enough handlebar but then he trips on the rear assembly)

Included in the box - Mura Plus raincover, Mura Plus shopping basket and Maxi-Cosi carseat adaptors (which are also used to fit the Folding Carrycot to the chassis)

Baby A is 9 weeks old now, so I haven’t used the seat unit so far – though it is suitable from birth, I have the Folding Carrycot as it’s my personal preference and I will use that until he is too big for it. Already he is a long baby, and I don’t think it will be big enough beyond four months old. (That is the same age J was when he became too big for the old style Mura Carrycot).

Maxi-Cosi Folding Carrycot 2015 Denim Hearts

The Folding Carrycot is an additional accessory, but again my personal preference is for newborns to be in a carrycot. Much more compact than the old equivalent, it has a sleeker, more modern style and folds down for ease of transportation. The mattress is double thickness and feels very luxurious and comfortable – its thicker than the mattress in the Moses basket! You can remove the cover for ease of washing, though I always use a Moses basket fitted base sheet on it anyway. The carrycot is easily removed from the chassis by pressing the buttons on either side and lifting it off the adaptors – its very lightweight (4.65kg) so it’s not a great hefty thing to carry about. Once folded, it’s a compact 16.5cm thick, so very easy to carry.

The raincover for the Folding Carrycot was incredibly difficult to get on the first time I used it. However, I’ve now used a couple more times, and it’s a lot easier, so I think it was just where the raincover had been folded since production and the crease lines had taken out valuable centimetres of space. (Top Tip – Hang raincovers out on the line to drop out the crease lines and get rid of that horrible plastic smell before you use it on your pushchair / carrycot) It now fits on very easily and provides excellent cover. It has waterproof navy fabric around the base of the carrycot and over the sun canopy, and then a see through section over the front of the carrycot. There’s a zipper around the edge of the sun canopy to be able to open the raincover easily while it’s fitted; I find this very useful when I’m in shops so Baby A doesn’t get too hot in there, without having to remove it completely every time you go into a shop when out and about.

The Mura Plus is my ‘walking’ pushchair, so I haven’t used it with the Pebble carseat but it is compatible with the adaptors included. As the carrycot folds so compactly (and very easily with the grey handle on the underneath) the times I have gone out in the car and wanted to take it with me both the Mura Plus chassis and the carrycot fits into the boot of my car. I do have to remove the rear wheels of the chassis, so a carrier bag is a must for containing them after a muddy walk! When he was four weeks old we went to a local fun day and I took the Mura Plus and carrycot, and he was warm and comfortable for hours – even the uneven terrain of the field we spent the afternoon walking around didn’t jostle him too much and he slept contentedly the whole time. I love that the apron has zippers attached instead of poppers as its much quicker to undo / do up, and you can’t loose the apron as it’s attached to the carrycot and can’t be forgotten anywhere. The sun canopy has an additional sun visor section at the front of it which is really handy for these autumnal days with the sun low in the sky. The top of the apron has poppers to do it up on the inside of the sun canopy hinges and provides an extra three inches or so up from the level of the apron, and this combined with the low sun visor means no sun is going to disturb baby’s sleep.

Maxi-Cosi Folding Carrycot with sun canopy and additional sun visor down

The Maxi-Cosi Pebble is also purchased separately, and it’s important to get a physical fitting done prior to purchase. As I’m carseat fitter trained myself I confirmed that the Pebble fits using the 3 point seatbelt as well as when using the EasyBase2. I don’t have IsoFix in my car, so the EasyBase2 makes it simpler for me – instead of fitting the carseat with the seatbelt every time, I fit the base with the seatbelt and then click the carseat on and off. The EasyBase2 is suitable for use with Pebble or CabrioFix carseat models. As this was previously used in my old car, I had to re-confirm suitability for the base in my existing car, and as there is a fake floor I contacted Toyota to discuss with them. The Pebble is FAA approved for use on board aircraft, and is suitable for babies from birth to 13kg. (Note: Baby becomes too tall for continued use of the carseat if their head crowns over the top of the carseat shell)

You can find my Maxi-Cosi Pebble review here.

The Mura Plus chassis itself is a fairly chunky 15.5kg (including seat unit) so not ideal for lifting in and out of the car boot on a frequent basis, but as I say I use it as my ‘walking’ pushchair so I’m rarely lifting it into the boot anyway. On the times I have, I’ve wheeled it up to the car before folding, removing the rear wheels, and lifting into the boot, to minimise how long I’m carrying it for.

In town, despite its size, the Mura Plus is easy to steer thanks to the rotating front wheel unit – this can also be locked in position if you prefer which is very good for travelling on sand, shingle or in the snow. Even though the Mura Plus is a chunky beast the foam filled tyres, rotating front wheel unit and foam padded single handlebar keeps it feeling lightweight and easy to control. The shopping basket offers a fair amount of space, at the moment I keep the carrycot raincover folded in it, and the rest of the baby stuff is in the nappy bag hanging on the handlebar (Remember, Maxi-Cosi do not recommend hanging a bag on the chassis at all as it has not been tested / approved for this – I do this at my own discretion and do not let go of the handlebar while baby A is in the product)

On rough terrain the Mura Plus comes into its own, gliding over bumps and lumps easily and your baby isn’t getting rattled about like mad no matter where you’re heading. The single handlebar means I can push it one handed on more even ground – handy for the school run, as it means I have a hand free to hold onto J! – but on rougher terrain you’ll need both hands to keep it under control or it will bounce off the direction you’re heading in.

I recommended the original Mura as I loved it so much, and I have to say, particularly with the improvements, I love the Mura Plus even more.  Highly recommended from Baby A and myself!

Peace N Love

Mummy P

Maxi-Cosi Mura

When I was pregnant with J (born August 2010), I’d been working for the company for a few years, and before I saw two lines appear on a test I knew if it happened that I would choose the Maxi-Cosi Mura pushchair. When it happened, I ordered the Tango Red colour from the 2010 Collection, and as well as the Mura I had a Mura pram body for when he was new-born and a CabrioFix carseat to be used with EasyBase2.

Maxi-Cosi Mura 2010 Tango Red

The Mura isn’t for everyone, but it was definitely the right choice for me. Our town is close to our house and there’s plenty of off road exploring to be done quite locally. It’s a chunky beast, but a small folding product to fit in the boot of my car wasn’t a priority for this – my main, ‘walking’ pushchair. It had large size air filled wheels, and I took it through town, off road, through mud, snow and sand, and never had an issue with it coping. For times when I did want to take it in the car, despite the size of it and the fact that I owned a VW Polo at the time, it did fit. I had to remove the seat unit and the rear wheels, it was a weight to lift so for the first few weeks after delivery it wouldn’t have been possible (but I didn’t drive for 6 weeks afterwards anyway) but once the chassis was in the wheels dropped in at the side and the seat unit laid over the top.

Maxi-Cosi Mura 2010 with Mura Carrycot Tango Red

As a three wheel model, the turning circle was small and neat, even though the Mura itself is a fair sized chassis. I know a lot of people complain about three wheelers not seeming stable, but I never once had an issue with the Mura – you just have to remember that as a three wheeler you can’t drop it down forwards, which is common sense really – when going up and down curbs, push down on the handlebar and spread the weight over the two rear wheels, and it won’t tip. The Mura always felt solid, good quality and it survived much – I used it with the pram body until J was four months old, but as a long child he then needed to use the seat unit. The pram body was suitable for use up to approx. 6 months, 10kg or when baby can sit up, whichever comes first, but as I say J was very long from the start and had to stop using both the pram body and the Moses basket at four months old.

The shopping basket was a good size, and I could fit two very large drinks bottles in there along with a bag of shopping. I frequently went to the local shops and got a few bits each time, though I wouldn’t have fancied trying to fit a weeks worth of shopping onto it and carry the remainder, but again that wasn’t something I needed to do. I had my car for going to the shops if I needed to, or else I’d order online.

Maxi-Cosi don’t recommend hanging anything on the handlebar as the product hasn’t been tested / approved for use with additional weight hanging on the chassis, but I must be honest and say I did. I would never have hung a bag on it and let go of the handlebar, but I would regularly hang the nappy bag over the handlebar and if I went shopping the bags would end up in the shopping basket or tied to the handlebar.

The Mura seat unit is lie flat, which means it is suitable from birth – my personal preference was to use a carrycot for the first few months, but this isn’t a requirement – The first time we took J out in the seat unit was the 1^st Jan 2011. It was a cold day and he wore a snowsuit as we walked around town alongside the river.

The sun canopy wasn’t great – it wasn’t the easiest to open and you couldn’t do it one-handed, which was a pain. After a few months the framework buckled and it was replaced; it wasn’t a particularly deep sun canopy, and while it was great when the seat unit was sitting upright, as soon as it was reclined it didn’t offer much protection and I often felt it could have done with being larger, to shield the child more from sun and wind when they were reclined (and so, more often than not, when they were sleeping)

There was a bar across the back of the seat unit which you lifted to unlock the seat for recline / sitting upright. I found it quite stiff and loud – if J dropped off to sleep and I had to drop the seat unit into a lying position the loud ‘clunk’ noise and the jerking of the back of the seat as the stiff bar was moved normally woke him up again.

To go with the seat unit I also had the Mura Footmuff. It was a quite different design to other footmuffs – it had legs, a wrap over top and a hood. Zips on the Footmuff opened up the sides of the top if you wanted the child’s arms to be free, and the legs could be unzipped to free their feet as they got older, allowing it to be used for longer.

Maxi-Cosi Mura Footmuff 2010 Tango Red

While the CabrioFix carseat can also be used on the chassis as well this wasn’t something I did; if I was going to the shops I’d take a smaller chassis as it would only be a quick journey and if I was going somewhere for a walk I’d take the carrycot or seat unit because I don’t like relying on the carseat too much for things other than car journeys.

Maxi-Cosi CabrioFix 2010 Tango Red

The raincover was a bit of a faff to get right. In sudden quick downpours it could become the stuff of nightmares but I became adept at doing it after a while (though others struggled through lack of practise) It fitted well but had lots of Velcro ties to do up, which made doing it slow process and more difficult in gusty weather as you just couldn’t grab hold of it all quickly enough. Once in place it covered well, and J never once managed to kick it off (despite his best efforts!)

I used the Mura regularly until J started nursery, a few weeks after his third birthday. It was used maybe once a week after that for long walks up until he was a few weeks away from his fourth birthday. The tyres needed pumping up quite often to keep the pSI correct and make sure it was as easy and light as possible to push, but we never had to patch a puncture or change a tyre / innertube.

When we stopped using the Mura I did feel quite sad. Packing it away after cleaning it I noticed it was still in really good condition, despite the years of heavy use. I really rate this product and when I saw Maxi-Cosi had updated it with some improvements I knew I had to get a Mura Plus for Baby …

More Coming Soon ...

Peace N Love

Mummy P x x x x