Balboa Baby Shopping Cart Cover, Lime Poppy

i started looking around for shopping cart/high chair covers as soon as my LO started sitting up well and decided to go with the balboa baby for the nice quality fabric and cute prints. i'll start with the pros...1. the fabric is a really nice quality thick, quilted fabric with really rich colors. the quilting provides a little cushioning as well. i think they found the right balance so it's thick enough to provide some padding but will fold up in a compact enough package.2. i love that it folds up into its own little pouch. it goes inside out so you keep the side that touches your baby away from the side that touches the gross carts. the pouch also has a little carry strap--really really useful when you're carrying a baby and a million other things. i clip the strap of the cart cover onto my diaper bag bc the pouch itself is a bit big to fit inside the diaper bag.3. it has 2 little toy loops so when your LO throws his favorite toy or teether, it won't fall on the dirty floor.4. let's not forget the real reason we all love this cover... the prints are really really cute. i got the stripes--it looks very henri bendel--but the floral prints are very pretty too. they also hide stains pretty well.the cons:1. the wide waist strap is nice but it's really annoying when taking your baby out of the high chair. even when i undid the velcro (which is a really nice quality velcro by the way), the whole cover came off along with my child bc the waist strap got stuck around his legs. my 6 month old can't sit in one spot for a whole meal so i'm constantly picking him up and putting him back in the high chair, so this was a little annoying.2. it's pricey for a shopping cart cover. but i haven't seen any covers that are much less expensive and fold up into its own pouch.it doesnt come with any instructions but it's easy to fold neatly into the pouch:1. flip it inside out so the side touching your baby is inside and fold the cover in half so the 2 elastic ends are aligned. make sure the cover is flat, with the pouch side away from you.2. fold the sides in, a little past the pouch edge. this is going to give you a little extra room to flip the pouch part over the cover.3. the cover should look tall and skinny now. start from the bottom and fold up into thirds (2 folds going up).4. flip inside out into the pouch and close with the velcro.

The seat belt in this cover is half the reason I like it. It seems so much more secure than the ones that come with carts or high chairs because I can fasten it around his lower back instead of down on his thighs. It has fit into every cart and high chair I've tried, although, I will do more shopping (for science!) to test it out. The internal harness is key, it anchors the baby's core to the cart/chair very well. Yes, the fabric cover is nice because those things are filthy and with this, at least it's just our own germs (I'm not going to wash it every day.) For now the velcro seems secure, but the hooks are itty bitty (like a cat tongue) and I have no idea how they manage to hold (but they do)! Magic! I think the fabric looks much nicer in person. The only real bummer is that there's not any padding - and basically you're still dealing with a metal shopping cart covered by a pillowcase... so, when little guy bonks his head on the cart, it's still pretty hard. I shall cram stuffed animals in around him for the time being. I see this being big enough to grow with us. I would buy this for a mom-to-be, even though she won't need it until like 7-8 months. Once you have it, you're glad. It was a relief to find this among the bazillion choices, and for all my research and worrying to be over.

This cover did not fit the Target carts well. The back of the cover was stretched pretty tight, and one corner kept popping off, which of course my baby decided he needed to investigate. There also isn't very much padding so there's a lot of empty space in the seat area. Fortunately, since my son is only 8mos old and still a little unstable while sitting on his own, my husband and I just take off our coats and nestle him in the center, allowing him to be propped up and not able to reach the exposed cart area. Other than Target, it seems to fit other area store shopping carts well. We haven't used it as a high chair cover yet, but we don't eat out very often. We bought this mostly because our son is still putting everything in his mouth and we didn't want him getting any unnecessary illnesses with this flu epidemic going around. It's still easier to place him in his bucket seat into the shopping cart rather than using the cart cover, but this will come in handy when he's bigger, so we decided to try it out. The most ANNOYING aspect of this product is the crazy way it folds into itself. You will NEVER be able to fold it back the way it was when purchased. Sorry. It's a fact. We've resorted to semi-folding then STUFFING it in and by then, it doesn't make a very small pouch at all. Overall, not bad, I wouldn't pay full retail price for it though.

I absolutely love this cover! The material is soft and does work with the larger carts. I love that it has hooks for toys as well as folds together to be carried easy. I love the print as well! The only reason I rated it 4 stars instead of 5 was I wish there was just a bit more padding on the back where the babies lean up against the back rest of the cart seat. I have a really thin LO and just wish there was a bit more padding between her and the metal seats. Also, while I love that there is a seat strap to help keep the LO seated, it isn't the easiest thing to use. It just kind of wraps around - so with a really little LO you have to wrap it like twice and it doesn't stick to well. These are both really small items overall - I would totally recommend this one over others I have seen in stores! The brand is great and I have already washed it with no issues!