Edit: I don't know how this got into allergies/sensitivities! I'm sorry!

My 13 month old is refusing to eat when we put her in the high chair. There's nothing hurting her about the chair. She just doesn't like to be constrained. For a while letting her eat without the tray helped - we just pushed her up to the table and let her eat off a placemat. Sometimes that still works. We also stopped buckling the shoulder straps and just do the waist straps now, but she still hates it. The second I put her in it she starts shaking her head, signing all done, kicking her legs, signing down, and it eventually leads to sobbing if I don't get her out of the chair. Obviously she doesn't get a lot of eating done with this going on.

If I let her down, she starts signing up, milk, strawberry, banana, more, nurse. Basically using all her food signs. I think she is hungry, but doesn't want to sit in her chair. She'll eat if she's sitting on my lap, but I don't want to resort to that to get her to eat. I would buy a new high chair if I believed the chair itself was really the problem. However I think it's an issue of her testing me/the rules. What do you think? Is this just a phase I need to wait out? And if so, is it ok that in the meantime she's barely eI'm ating? We're transitioning from formula to whole milk and she's doing ok with that, but it means she's not getting the calories and nutrients from formula anymore and that makes me a little nervous when she barely eats anything at a meal. She still nurses several times a day, but I think it's mostly for comfort, not as a meal, if that makes sense.