Planning Disney with a Baby

Garyjames220

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 3, 2014
Hey

So we are currently planning disney with an 8 month old for the end of next year

We are from the uk and I understand every baby is different and we won’t know certain things until our baby is born

It will just be the two of us and the baby going and we did plan in using a few days of the baby sitting

However until then it would be good to get a few tips as we are new to this and its our first baby and want to make our trip as easy as possible

So a few questions I have are -

- How do you find using rider swap, do you get fed up of waiting in queues by yourself?

- I see a lot of people eat at like 4/5pm, that would be a bit early for as. We would normally go at 7/7.30 without a baby. Will this still be possible? Normally they would be going to bed at that time but now we are hoping the baby is in a high chair at this time. Do I stand a chance of this working? Very important if I’m booking ADRs to get this right

We plan on going to the park late morning and then back in the evening or early morning, then back early afternoon and go back out on the evening

- do you think staying out late for shows and going to Disney springs until 11pm will be possible with the baby and how did you make that work if the baby is tired?

- Also what is the best way to deal with rides. I mean if the baby is sleeping in the stroller and you are about to go on a ride/got a fast pass. Would you take the baby out of the stroller and wake it up to go on to the ride still?

- also if you want to share any of your daily routines and any tips it would be appreciated

All very new to us and we really aren’t sure with a lot of those questions I’m asking

Thanks for any help
 
My personal number one piece of advice is to follow the baby's schedule, not your own preferences, while on vacation. Others may find that their children adapted to big changes just fine as babies, but my own kids always stayed happiest when their sleep patterns were kept pretty much the same.

We always figured that there would be plenty of trips in the future where we could revolve the trip around us again, but when there was a baby/napping toddler in the family, they got to call the shots in terms of planning. So we definitely did not stay out late for shows and we always tried to get in a nap....either in the stroller or back at the resort, depending on the kid.

One of our kids slept well in cars and in strollers and one did not, and you don't any warning ahead of time about what sort of kid you're getting, LOL, so that makes planning a bit tough. So my 2nd piece of advice---be very flexible with this trip. I wouldn't expect to eat dinners at the same time I used to. I can't even promise you'll be able to have as many table service dinners as you might normally have. Again--one of my kids was amazing in restaurants right from birth. (I literally had him out at a week old for a Mother's Day breakfast. :) ) My next kid was beastly in restaurants until he was about 4 years old. He just hated them. He's 9 now and he really still dislikes a lot of sit-down restaurants, and so we still go to less as not to make him miserable the entire trip. And we try to choose a few we think will particularly appeal to him.

We never did ride swap. We were happy to go on rides that we could all go on, figuring we'd go on those other rides another time. So I can't say much about that. We tried not to wake up a sleeping baby at any cost, so if we were ready to ride and they were asleep, we just skipped it at that time. You can usually modify a fastpass if it's not an extremely popular ride. :)

Best of luck and I hope you have a great trip. :)
 
My initial thought was just the plane ride getting here... my plane ride of 2 hours to Disney with a kid was enough for me... couldn’t imagine significantly longer. Based on your note it sounds like the baby is only a plan at this time? Not yet conceived since being 8 months old at the end of next year? Maybe my math is wrong or you’re implying something else. Either way, as a mom of 2, my opinion is you are getting WAAY ahead of yourself. You (and this world) have many things going on between now and the end of next year. I wouldn’t hesitate to book when the time comes, but circle back to your questions and think about the answers a year from now. Your trip could be anything between best vacation ever to a waste of money, and you won’t be positioned to tell anytime soon.
 
My initial thought was just the plane ride getting here... my plane ride of 2 hours to Disney with a kid was enough for me... couldn’t imagine significantly longer. Based on your note it sounds like the baby is only a plan at this time? Not yet conceived since being 8 months old at the end of next year? Maybe my math is wrong or you’re implying something else. Either way, as a mom of 2, my opinion is you are getting WAAY ahead of yourself. You (and this world) have many things going on between now and the end of next year. I wouldn’t hesitate to book when the time comes, but circle back to your questions and think about the answers a year from now. Your trip could be anything between best vacation ever to a waste of money, and you won’t be positioned to tell anytime soon.

yeah it would be two flights and quite a lot of travelling. About a 16 hour day

well my wife had a miscarriage but conceived again recently and hoping it goes ok this time, so would be about 8 months old when we go end of next year

of course these plans could change but it’s just to get a rough idea

did u want to give any thoughts on the questions I’m unsure about 🤷‍♂️
 
My personal number one piece of advice is to follow the baby's schedule, not your own preferences, while on vacation. Others may find that their children adapted to big changes just fine as babies, but my own kids always stayed happiest when their sleep patterns were kept pretty much the same.

We always figured that there would be plenty of trips in the future where we could revolve the trip around us again, but when there was a baby/napping toddler in the family, they got to call the shots in terms of planning. So we definitely did not stay out late for shows and we always tried to get in a nap....either in the stroller or back at the resort, depending on the kid.

One of our kids slept well in cars and in strollers and one did not, and you don't any warning ahead of time about what sort of kid you're getting, LOL, so that makes planning a bit tough. So my 2nd piece of advice---be very flexible with this trip. I wouldn't expect to eat dinners at the same time I used to. I can't even promise you'll be able to have as many table service dinners as you might normally have. Again--one of my kids was amazing in restaurants right from birth. (I literally had him out at a week old for a Mother's Day breakfast. :) ) My next kid was beastly in restaurants until he was about 4 years old. He just hated them. He's 9 now and he really still dislikes a lot of sit-down restaurants, and so we still go to less as not to make him miserable the entire trip. And we try to choose a few we think will particularly appeal to him.

We never did ride swap. We were happy to go on rides that we could all go on, figuring we'd go on those other rides another time. So I can't say much about that. We tried not to wake up a sleeping baby at any cost, so if we were ready to ride and they were asleep, we just skipped it at that time. You can usually modify a fastpass if it's not an extremely popular ride. :)

Best of luck and I hope you have a great trip. :)

well we were going with the Disney dinning plan and I no a lot of the restaurants we were picking may not be able to change the times, do u think having dinner at 7ish just won’t work.

the rides again may be hard to change as it’s going to be the 50th and not sure if it will be that easy to change times

still trying to decide if this trip is going to work lol
 
We haven't been to Disney with kids that young, but we travel a ton with young kids. We also took our youngest to the UK last year, and she turned 1 there. With kids that age, we tend to wear them a lot. They have always loved napping that way.

Dinner times will be hard, not only will you have a baby, you will also have a big time difference. I would plan to eat a little earlier then you normally do. At that age, kids have started usually started solids, so be mindful of that. They don't have to eat when you do either. I think you could plan a few dinning reservations and see how the first two go, then adjust the others as needed.

I can't help with the rides, as I've only gone to Disney once, and we had small kids, so we only did stuff they could do.

As for staying out late - we've done this some of the time when we've traveled with kids, but I wouldn't do it most of the time. And most of the time, if we stayed out late, we made sure they had a long nap, and they were usually asleep in the baby carrier for a lot of it.

For shows - make sure you don't go anywhere really loud. It's not good for their ears.

Good luck.
 
I totally understand wanting to plan a trip for the new baby! Things like that are part of dreaming about your (I assume) first child, like setting up the nursery and thinking about how you'll spend your days.

Having just been there myself (the first baby part, not the baby at Disney part,) my advice would be to plan a relaxing vacation, with more emphasis on the vacation part. If you are the type who normally likes to have a tight schedule of fast passes and dining plans, I would recommend putting that aside and planning more on wandering around Disney Springs, the World Showcase, spending a day poolside, etc. Room service or walk-in dining vs. reservations. Because I would plan on being really, really reeeeally tired. If you're not, that's an awesome bonus - but if you are, you'll really want a break. Hopefully your wife is one of the lucky women who have no complications and bounce back quickly after pregnancy, but for me, I was shocked at how long it took to get back to a semblance of normal. I would say at least six months before I started to feel like myself, except extremely exhausted - but at least recognizably like myself. Depending on how pregnancy and labor go, the recovery time was beyond anything I ever dreamed of, and I was totally taken by surprise by that part of being a new mom.

In addition, I planned on my baby sleeping through the night when the baby books said he would - unfortunately he has not gotten the memo. So with an 8 month old, you could well still be getting up every 2, 3, or 4 hours for feedings. Your workload in terms of laundry, diaper changes, sanitizing bottles or pump parts, etc., will also double over night, so I would say err on the side of caution when it comes to estimating your fatigue. (Also, 8 months can be an age where they want to be entertained all the time and can freak out about new things, loud noises, etc., so I think a lot of flexibility would be good. If your baby won't ride in a stroller and wants a constant stream of key-jangling and peek-a-boo, you will likely want to avoid anything with a super long walk. If the stroller calms them and you can clip a mobile to it for entertainment, you might want to maximize walk time).

I would also say plan to concentrate your activities around the morning. I think the vast majority of babies are fresh in the morning and crankier in the afternoons. (Although many babies take a late morning nap, so early morning might be a safer bet.) Every baby is different but I think that is by far the most common pattern. I would also plan on just skipping rides if they are napping. Again, every baby is different, but I think odds are good that he or she will not be a happy camper if woken up (and honestly, you may be surprised at home much you want that break for adult time, so you might not want to wake them up!)
 


I would also say plan to concentrate your activities around the morning. I think the vast majority of babies are fresh in the morning and crankier in the afternoons. (Although many babies take a late morning nap, so early morning might be a safer bet.)

Another reason to get up and out early is that it will be cooler. (Side note, you may want to be prepared to employ different methods of keeping the baby cool when they are in the stroller, because like car seat, strollers can get pretty warm sometimes, depending on the style, fabrics, & color.)

When it's melt your face off hot outside a non-walker has to either be in the stroller or carried, and they may not like either of those options if they both make the baby even warmer.
 
One last thing---people make their ADRs 180 days out and their FPs 60 days out (well, they used to anyway!) and then, as their trip gets closer, or even while they are there, they change them. they cancel them. They modify them. Especially the ADRs, because people can make multiple ADRs for the same restaurant in order to give themselves flexibility and not cancel the extras until 24 hours out. So ADRs are always being added back into the system as people cancel. A lot of folks find that they may not be able to get an ADR 180 days out, but a week or two out they get it.

You keep talking about what you do *now*, pre-baby. You eat late now, you stay up late now. By the time this trip comes along, you might find you have a whole new schedule as well. And maybe you'll be used to eating early by them. Or used to going to bed earlier. :)

So you may find that when baby is 4 or 5 months old, you already know what time will be best to make those dinner arrangements and you can go in and change some then, if possible. But even if you can't change them then, you might still find you can change them very close to the actual date of the meal.

As a back-up, as you get much closer to the trip, try checking out the menus for quick serve and resort restaurants. You may find there are quick serve options you will really like, or you may find that it's easier to snag resort ADRs close to the trip. :)
 
I think you are going to need to be flexible with scheduling since your child will probably be on a wonky sleep schedule, especially with the time difference. It may be that later dinners are perfect but you probably won’t know until you go. We took our daughter around that age. The flight won’t be super fun, but I’m sure you can do it. I don’t remember being put off by rider swap. I mostly remember having to adjust expectations for how much you can get in each day. You may be able to extend it by letting your child take naps in the baby care stations. We spent a lot of time in there.
 
I think you are going to need to be flexible with scheduling since your child will probably be on a wonky sleep schedule, especially with the time difference. It may be that later dinners are perfect but you probably won’t know until you go. We took our daughter around that age. The flight won’t be super fun, but I’m sure you can do it. I don’t remember being put off by rider swap. I mostly remember having to adjust expectations for how much you can get in each day. You may be able to extend it by letting your child take naps in the baby care stations. We spent a lot of time in there.

Yeah I herd they were good

Mybe just need to change dinners to 6/6.30

I’m hoping we can still see the night time shows but cos we are new to this don’t no what to expect

It’s a lot of money this trip so hoping it goes well lol
 
We first took our DS when he was 1 year old. He was not a great sleeper and was always up by 5 am, so we always went to the parks early, typically made it through lunch time and then attempted to get back to the resort for his nap (sometimes he would fall asleep in his stroller and we would then just find a quiet place in the parks). I found out quickly that his schedule went completely off in WDW and we would have to reconfigure our afternoon/evening schedules every day (I ended up canceling all of our dinner ADRs). Especially with your time zone change, you just don't know how your baby is going to react until you get there. I, personally, would not schedule any dinner ADRs to begin with and would play your evenings by ear. We found, eventually, that breakfast ADRs worked best for him (since he woke up so early) and we kept the rest of the day very fluid. I think you have to go in with the expectation that you may have to change plans day-by-day depending on how your baby is doing and be ok with it. It's a whole different kind of trip when you bring a baby.
 
I took my son at 3 months & 8 months old. I utilized a baby carrier, which made it way easier to get in and out of the rides, sometimes he was awake and sometimes he was sleeping. My family found that going in the morning to the parks, then back to the resort for a nice nap and then back to the parks for the evening worked best for us. Our ADRs were all over the place and we did not try to eat early just for the baby. He could be awake for dinner or asleep 😴 he just kind of had to go with the flow for that, we brought snacks, and food he liked so if he got hungry before dinner he ate, and if he needed to be breast fed or bottle fed well he could have that whenever. My son was not an easy baby, in fact he was a super grumpy dude most the time but we just made sure he got a good nap in the middle of the day. We did use rider swap and it’s not too bad, but we have a daughter so the rider wasn’t riding alone, but if it’s just the two of you then you could use single rider, which is usually pretty fast. Don’t let having a baby Intimidate you into not going to Disney. It’s can still be fun, and by 8 months old you will know your baby and what the little one can handle.
 
Hey

So we are currently planning disney with an 8 month old for the end of next year

We are from the uk and I understand every baby is different and we won’t know certain things until our baby is born

It will just be the two of us and the baby going and we did plan in using a few days of the baby sitting

However until then it would be good to get a few tips as we are new to this and its our first baby and want to make our trip as easy as possible

So a few questions I have are -

- How do you find using rider swap, do you get fed up of waiting in queues by yourself?

- I see a lot of people eat at like 4/5pm, that would be a bit early for as. We would normally go at 7/7.30 without a baby. Will this still be possible? Normally they would be going to bed at that time but now we are hoping the baby is in a high chair at this time. Do I stand a chance of this working? Very important if I’m booking ADRs to get this right

We plan on going to the park late morning and then back in the evening or early morning, then back early afternoon and go back out on the evening

- do you think staying out late for shows and going to Disney springs until 11pm will be possible with the baby and how did you make that work if the baby is tired?

- Also what is the best way to deal with rides. I mean if the baby is sleeping in the stroller and you are about to go on a ride/got a fast pass. Would you take the baby out of the stroller and wake it up to go on to the ride still?

- also if you want to share any of your daily routines and any tips it would be appreciated

All very new to us and we really aren’t sure with a lot of those questions I’m asking

Thanks for any help

I have gone with babies many times. We always had great trips. To answer your questions:

1) I thought I wouldn't like going on rides alone using rider swap but I surprised myself in how much fun it still was.
2) You can definitely make dinner reservations at 7 or 7:30. Many babies do like to go to bed around that time, so I wouldn't exactly recommend it based on my experience, but plenty of people do it. If you are travelling from overseas, your body clocks are a little different anyway. You will see babies in the parks at 11pm.
3) Again, this depends on the baby. If you want to do a late show, I would pick the most important to you. Doing one every night is tough. We took my 3 month old son to see Happily Ever after. He slept thru the whole thing in my husband's arms. At almost 2, he stayed up for the Star Wars fireworks at DHS and fell asleep in the stroller afterwards. When my older son was 8 months we went to Disneyland in California. We hired a sitter one night to go to World of Color and a nice dinner. You might consider trying that.
4) Depends. Sometimes I have taken a seat somewhere cool (like a quick service) and waited out a nap. Other times I have taken a sleeping baby out of the stroller. Mine usually promptly fell asleep on my shoulder. I did this for HM once. Babies love sleeping in HM because it is dark. Same with Spaceship Earth.
5) We didn't do midday breaks very often because getting back to the resort can be a big hassle and takes a lot of time. My kids usually slept in the stroller then we head back to the resort when we've had enough of the parks for the day. YMMV. My kids were never the type to sleep in a crib during the day. They'd be far more likely to fall asleep on the bus ride back to the resort then be up and raring to go.
 
I have gone with babies many times. We always had great trips. To answer your questions:

1) I thought I wouldn't like going on rides alone using rider swap but I surprised myself in how much fun it still was.
2) You can definitely make dinner reservations at 7 or 7:30. Many babies do like to go to bed around that time, so I wouldn't exactly recommend it based on my experience, but plenty of people do it. If you are travelling from overseas, your body clocks are a little different anyway. You will see babies in the parks at 11pm.
3) Again, this depends on the baby. If you want to do a late show, I would pick the most important to you. Doing one every night is tough. We took my 3 month old son to see Happily Ever after. He slept thru the whole thing in my husband's arms. At almost 2, he stayed up for the Star Wars fireworks at DHS and fell asleep in the stroller afterwards. When my older son was 8 months we went to Disneyland in California. We hired a sitter one night to go to World of Color and a nice dinner. You might consider trying that.
4) Depends. Sometimes I have taken a seat somewhere cool (like a quick service) and waited out a nap. Other times I have taken a sleeping baby out of the stroller. Mine usually promptly fell asleep on my shoulder. I did this for HM once. Babies love sleeping in HM because it is dark. Same with Spaceship Earth.
5) We didn't do midday breaks very often because getting back to the resort can be a big hassle and takes a lot of time. My kids usually slept in the stroller then we head back to the resort when we've had enough of the parks for the day. YMMV. My kids were never the type to sleep in a crib during the day. They'd be far more likely to fall asleep on the bus ride back to the resort then be up and raring to go.

thanks, some helpful advice there. We are going for 15 nights so u think there will be enough for us to do, we were going to do a day or two at the water parks and a day at sea world too
 
I think you got great advice above. The youngest I’ve taken kids to Disney was just after my oldest turned 2 but I’ve traveled with both at all ages (from 3 months and on) and flexibility is definitely key. Those earlier trips were definitely harder and they weren’t to theme parks. By about 8 months babies are usually sleeping better and not waking up as much to eat but then they can also be teething and might not sleep well because of that. So you just never know exactly what you might be dealing with at that time. Even if you get there and your baby has been sleeping great for weeks, the time change and being away from home could throw off their sleep a lot and you could all be really tired.

I think if you manage expectations and are ready to be flexible and cancel or change dining reservations and take things at whatever pace you can, then you’ll find you will have a fun trip. If you try to do too much and get frustrated if things aren’t going the way you want or wish it to, then you won’t have as much fun.

I don’t think you’ll mind rider swap. You’ll have plenty of times that the baby will need a bottle or a snack or will be napping or need a diaper change (or a combo!) and one of you could go hit a ride while the other tends to the baby and then the one who has been with the baby gets to go through the fast pass line so that will be quicker. Then next time you can swap who is tending to the baby and who is waiting in the line.

A baby carrier is a life saver in general but especially at a place like Disney. My babies were very used to our carriers and if I knew it was about naptime, I’d frequently stick them in the carrier and let them nap there in certain situations when a stroller couldn’t be used or would be more difficult. That doesn’t mean you’d always have to use a baby carrier for naps if you didn’t want to but every baby is different. Some will sleep easily in a stroller and others won’t. Mine only would stay asleep in a stroller if I kept walking them but they’d stay asleep in a carrier even if I sat down (once they were really, full asleep); I guess bc they were snuggled up to a person. So if you know you’re going to do a ride that’s a rider swap one, you could have baby sleep in the stroller and take turns riding but if it’s something you can ride with the baby in the carrier then when he or she gets sleepy, stick baby in the carrier, and then head to the ride.

Good luck and best wishes to you and your wife. I know how stressful it is to have a baby post-miscarriage so I think you should go and enjoy every second with your little one.
 
I think you got great advice above. The youngest I’ve taken kids to Disney was just after my oldest turned 2 but I’ve traveled with both at all ages (from 3 months and on) and flexibility is definitely key. Those earlier trips were definitely harder and they weren’t to theme parks. By about 8 months babies are usually sleeping better and not waking up as much to eat but then they can also be teething and might not sleep well because of that. So you just never know exactly what you might be dealing with at that time. Even if you get there and your baby has been sleeping great for weeks, the time change and being away from home could throw off their sleep a lot and you could all be really tired.

I think if you manage expectations and are ready to be flexible and cancel or change dining reservations and take things at whatever pace you can, then you’ll find you will have a fun trip. If you try to do too much and get frustrated if things aren’t going the way you want or wish it to, then you won’t have as much fun.

I don’t think you’ll mind rider swap. You’ll have plenty of times that the baby will need a bottle or a snack or will be napping or need a diaper change (or a combo!) and one of you could go hit a ride while the other tends to the baby and then the one who has been with the baby gets to go through the fast pass line so that will be quicker. Then next time you can swap who is tending to the baby and who is waiting in the line.

A baby carrier is a life saver in general but especially at a place like Disney. My babies were very used to our carriers and if I knew it was about naptime, I’d frequently stick them in the carrier and let them nap there in certain situations when a stroller couldn’t be used or would be more difficult. That doesn’t mean you’d always have to use a baby carrier for naps if you didn’t want to but every baby is different. Some will sleep easily in a stroller and others won’t. Mine only would stay asleep in a stroller if I kept walking them but they’d stay asleep in a carrier even if I sat down (once they were really, full asleep); I guess bc they were snuggled up to a person. So if you know you’re going to do a ride that’s a rider swap one, you could have baby sleep in the stroller and take turns riding but if it’s something you can ride with the baby in the carrier then when he or she gets sleepy, stick baby in the carrier, and then head to the ride.

Good luck and best wishes to you and your wife. I know how stressful it is to have a baby post-miscarriage so I think you should go and enjoy every second with your little one.

Thanks for your advice, that’s some really good tips for us Which I think we will end up doing a lot off, Especially attending to baby as the other person does ride and then swap around next time.

What’s your thoughts on dinning do you think 7.30 is a bit late and Mybe change time 6/6.30. Hard one because I no some of the dinning places we want to go to won’t have availability to just change at the last minute

Yeah the miscarriage was very stressful and doing planning like this helps as look forward to the future and getting through it
 
You can definitely have a great trip if you are flexible. This is not the trip for a rigid schedule! All kids are different and as you get closer you will have a clearer picture of what will work. Our first child could go with the flow and stay out late. Our second...not so much. We would still stay out maybe one night and plan accordingly for the next day.

I would personally not make every dinner reservation at 7:00, but some days it could work. When our kids were babies we often did table service at lunch time, leaving us free to do counter service for dinner. This way we could eat whenever we wanted. Since you will have a long trip, you have plenty of time to do everything. So some days could just be parks in the morning and resort pool in the afternoon. Disney with a baby can be a lot of fun! I have great memories of those days.
 
Also, I’m sorry for your loss. I’ve been through it and remember it vividly. I hope your wife’s current pregnancy is healthy and uneventful.
 
I think I would do earlier dinner times and not plan on dinner reservations every night so you can have more flexibility. So prioritize which restaurants you want to go to and then maybe make reservations for every other night. That way you can see how things are going and if you really want to get to dinner tonight, you might find you have to take a break at the resort during the day to make it happen. Then tomorrow if you don’t have a reservation and can just get quick service for dinner, you’ll have a lot more flexibility. A lot of babies do ok napping out and about but need to be back in their space and settled in for the night. I didn’t prefer to have my baby fall asleep out of the house in the evening and then have to get them back to sleep back at home/a hotel. It seemed to disrupt their sleep and wasn’t something I would want to do every single night on a vacation. That doesn’t mean we never had them out at night, we definitely did (especially on vacation or trips to visit family), I just wouldn’t plan on doing it every single night.

Another thing to consider is that a bunch of table service restaurants around Disney World have a lounge. And you don’t need reservations for the lounges. So that can help you with some flexibility but still being able to get into some of those restaurants that you might want to try. The only downside is I don’t think you can use the dining plan at a lounge.
 

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