2 Year old afraid of rides???

[kdevoe]

My DH and I are planning a January 2014 to The World with our DS (2yrs 8months at time of travel). I was beyond excited until we took DS (2yrs 1month) to the local carousel yesterday and he didn't want to get on the horse. I even said to him ok we will ride a horse that doesn't move. He didn't want that either. We wound up sitting on the bench thingy that doesn't move. Lame.

I know that we still have time before our vacation, but I'm so nervous that DS won't want to ride any rides. I guess I just need a little encouragement and reassurance that we will have a great WDW trip. Any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[Mama Who]

My DH and I are planning a January 2014 to The World with our DS (2yrs 8months at time of travel). I was beyond excited until we took DS (2yrs 1month) to the local carousel yesterday and he didn't want to get on the horse. I even said to him ok we will ride a horse that doesn't move. He didn't want that either. We wound up sitting on the bench thingy that doesn't move. Lame.

I know that we still have time before our vacation, but I'm so nervous that DS won't want to ride any rides. I guess I just need a little encouragement and reassurance that we will have a great WDW trip. Any recommendations are appreciated.

My 12 month old hated carousels but enjoyed many of the other rides. Hating one does not automatically mean he'll hate them all.

 

[MKOtter]

We will be there in July with our Nervous Nelly 16 mo DS. I have no idea what we'll do if he hates rides. Parades, music show and train rides in both MK and Epcot. I am going to post a question about what the most GENTLE rides are in all parks.

 

[theelfqueen]

When my youngest was 2 1/2, we totally SCREWED UP at WDW.

We managed to take him on rides that terrified him, pretty close to first thing each day. My older two sons were NEVER afraid of ANYTHING (my middle son literally had tea parties with Gollum at age 2 1/2. ) So it was kind of a shock. FIL suggested a morning visit to Haunted Mansion... neither of my older kids was ever afraid, the Little Guy was TERRIFIED. Bug's Life - Yup. HORROR SHOW. We didn't take him to EPCOT - he spent that day at his favorite part of the trip - with his Grandma hanging out at Ft Wilderness.... This kid hid his face on Peter Pan. He was a kid who preferred a bench on a carousel (usually he pretended they were Santa's Sleigh)... just go with his flow as best you can!

At MK - He LOVED the Liberty Belle. He loved Tom Sawyers Island. There were quite a few quieter, kid friendly options. The train. Carrousel. Laugh Floor. Carousel of Progress. Pooh was okay... Philharmagic was a hit. He loved fireworks, parades, etc.

Same kid at 5, we screwed up AGAIN at DLR. He did great on Astro Orbiters, Nemo Subs, even Matterhorn... then we took him on Space Mountain. He spent the rest of the visit swearing that he wished Space Mountain did NOT EXIST. and refusing anything "Fast" (I did get him on Splash Mountain, did not get him on BTMRR - despite being a train fanatic).

 

[lfortin16]

One trick I used on the scary "dark" rides was to bring glow-in-the-dark bracelets. I told the kids these magic bracelets protected them from all harm and if they got scared- just look at them.
They worked like a charm!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Personally, I'd round file the Disney idea until he's older if riding rides matters a lot to you. Wait until he's ready.

 

[christygobar]

We just took DD (2 1/2) in April and also discovered her serious fear of rides. Her first two rides were ETWB and LM dark ride - and immediately she was afraid of the mirror in ETWB and everything in LM. From that point forward, I'm pretty sure she just thought we were tricking her. Outdoor rides were okay - Safaris and the Carousel (after we started going), but we had to avoid nearly everything else.

Thankfully, she LOVES the characters, parades and really loved the animals at AK - so all was not lost. She still had a good time But it was an expensive lesson this time. We'll wait until she is older

 

[Pakey]

Our kids had no fears so it was shocking when our 3 year old grandson was afraid of every ride and attraction. He did love the character meets, parades, and play areas though.

You just learn to adjust your expectations. We still had a great trip and when we returned when he was 6, all fears were gone.

 

[Ladygoldenhair]

My DH and I are planning a January 2014 to The World with our DS (2yrs 8months at time of travel). I was beyond excited until we took DS (2yrs 1month) to the local carousel yesterday and he didn't want to get on the horse. I even said to him ok we will ride a horse that doesn't move. He didn't want that either. We wound up sitting on the bench thingy that doesn't move. Lame.

I know that we still have time before our vacation, but I'm so nervous that DS won't want to ride any rides. I guess I just need a little encouragement and reassurance that we will have a great WDW trip. Any recommendations are appreciated.

This is common in many kids. Ours was five when she did it. Try feeding a carrot to the carrousel horsey. I would get or play as many Disney info movies or planning DVD's too. A trip to Chucky Cheese give some ride activities and character greet. They do out grow it, but the year you get there with a kiddo like hat is trying. We had to do parent swaps even for the Hall of Presidents.

 

[brooke789]

We just took our 2 year olds (2 year 10 month twins)...who are generally scared of everything. They'd never been on any type of ride (not even a carousel). They loved almost every.single.thing. The only thing that scared my daughter was the People Mover and my son was not scared of anything.

They also loved the characters. We weren't sure how that would go either, but it literally could not have been better!

Good Luck!!

 

[laughinplace199]

You won't know how he'll react until you get there, so the best thing is to adjust your expectations.

When DD was around 2.5, she also was afraid of our local carousel. She didn't even like those little rides that you see sometimes in malls or outside of a grocery store. We had planned a trip to WDW shortly after she turned 3 and we were certain that she would hate all of the rides. So, we planned on doing parades and a lot of shopping and people-watching in the parks and a lot of pool time at the resort.

Boy were we wrong! She loved all of the rides and even did the Barnstormer 10 times over the course of the week!

We had low expectations, and were prepared to have fun just being on vacation, but we were very pleasantly surprised by DD's reaction.

 

[mm1971]

Personally, I'd round file the Disney idea until he's older if riding rides matters a lot to you. Wait until he's ready.

I agree with this. Don't force it as it will leave long term memories and prevent him from riding later. Let him choose and try not to scare him if you go. My kids were always pretty good, but still have rides they will not do, and they are 13 and 10. If the rides are important to you, postpone until he is more comfortable.

Remember that there are so many things to do beyond the rides that you can still have a great time. And once there, he may open up with the theming on the rides. Good luck.

 

[jadelane1]

Start with the smallest rides first and see if you can work your way up to the bigger ones but don't push it. I wouldn't talk about it or make a big deal of it, my niece listens to everything and the more my mother talks about it the worse she is. I would also use something light up. We gave my daughter a light up wand. When we went into the haunted mansion we told her to light it up when she got scared and it would keep the ghosts away. Good luck and he may surprise you

 

[fabulousfive]

You won't know how he'll react until you get there, so the best thing is to adjust your expectations.

When DD was around 2.5, she also was afraid of our local carousel. She didn't even like those little rides that you see sometimes in malls or outside of a grocery store. We had planned a trip to WDW shortly after she turned 3 and we were certain that she would hate all of the rides..

This is exactly where we are at too with our 2.5 year old. You've given me hope that things can change in just a few months.

 

[jacknsally19]

I would start with rides where you can sit next to your child and/or have them on your lap.... Like Its a Small World. But don't worry, there is a lot to do if the little one isn't into rides. I really appreciated the shows, parades and activities with my 1 yr old that I didn't really pay much attention to pre motherhood

 

[Woodmnky]

We are planning to start with the train to get our almost 3 yo, never been on rides kids used to the idea of being on something that moves. From then I am thinking of the carousel, tea cups (with minimal spinning), Dumbo. I have a feeling that my son will do better on the rides that he can see before he gets on. Thankfully WDW does have a lot to offer other than rides.

 

[rachael95]

You might want to try local mini-rides. Like I'm sure your mall has the little mini-carousel type thing that costs 75 cents. Whenever I put DS on that, I always just walk around the carousel with him. They usually have little vehicles to sit in like a train, car, spaceship, etc. Even the little rides at Walmart could be a good starter ride.

Then, move up from there to bigger rides. Once they have the idea that they can sit in something that moves them and it's safe then it can be fun.

 

[DSNY4ever]

You can still have a lot of fun without the rides- parades, shows, ride the monorail around to the resorts, character meals, streetmosphere etc. Plus you can do child swap and still ride stuff yourself. But kids change so much at that age my DS didn't want to go down the big slide at the park one morning even though it is usually his favorite...it's all about their mood! But don't get your hopes up either, some kids are just scaredy cats and hopefully they grow out of it eventually. Just enjoy what you can.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

Remember that at 2-years old, kids are still developing and their brains are still learning how to process. Sometimes if they look at a particular ride, their brains can't tell them how it will feel when they put their body on it. This translates into the brain saying, "No way! Get me the heck away from that!" They might appear scared or stubborn, but a lot of the time it's just because they're too young to process how the experience will feel. It's good to offer alternatives (like riding on the bench instead of a horse on the carousel). When they get a feel for the spinning motion and see how the horses work, they might be willing to try it next time. If my kids objected to a ride, I wouldn't make them go on it. They both tried all of the rides eventually and decided which ones they did and didn't like.

 

[cobright]

Seriously start in a different environment. Things he doesn't think of as a ride.

Does he like the escalators at the mall? Call it a ride and make a point to go up and down a bunch of them for the fun of it.

Does he like riding with dad (or whoever) on the riding lawnmower? Start calling it a ride.

Stuff at the park playground? Those are rides now. He's riding the slide. Riding the swings. "Do you want to go ride the monkey bars at the park?"

At the same time, start loading the Disney movies into him. Figure out a favorite and stress how much fun that character is having doing all those rides he's doing in the movie.

Then the character stops being a character and you refer to it as one of his friends. "Look how much fun your friend Nemo is having in the ocean!"

Now when you get to epcot and ride the nemo ride, you tell him you're getting taken by these friendly clams to visit his friend Nemo under the ocean.

It's largely a power struggle at first. Once he breaks it will be right as rain to zip from ride to ride.

Take it from me, there's more ways to get a Pashto collaborator to rat out his mates then screaming Urdu curses at him for hours.