Disney with a 12 month old....

[cel_disney]

We took DS when he was 11.5 months old...he started walking just a few weeks before hand.

I packed diapers, 2 bottles (we used playtex drop ins), medela microwave sterilization bag, formula (in a ziploc baggy so you dont have to bring the mostly empty container taking up space home) and oneshot bags to have in the park, some baby food containers (mostly veggies to supplement real food he would eat from our plates), and some snacks (puffs, nutrigrain bars etc). You can get baby food and gerber snacks at the parks in the babycare area so dont overpack...

We took our full-size Zippy stroller - he did a great job napping in it for his morning nap (which was a great time for DH and I to go on roller coasters) and again at night. We got him ear plugs - he liked to watch the fire works, but they were too loud.

I packed a backpack with an extra outfit in a ziploc bag (mainly so I had a bag for wet clothes), and a days worth of diapers/wipes and a changing pad, a snack, bottle/formula, and a sippy cup. I could hang it off the back of our stroller most of the time. We brought disposable placemats, but I dont think I carried them with me much after the first day. I did go through 1-2 containers of baby food or applesauce daily but it was more to supplement his meals or be a snack. If I needed more, I would probably have ordered from the grocery store. You can bring some on the plane, but I checked most (in a ziploc baggy just incase).

I brought some of those pre-soap dish pads cut up into smaller pieces so I could use one daily and then the medela steam bags (there were micros in the food courts at POFQ).

Bring the rain cover for the stroller.

Find out where the play areas are in each park...at magic kingdom -the pooh spot and laughing place, epcot - the fountains, DHS has the honey I shrunk the kid area...they are great place to let your little one burn of steam and friendly enough for crawlers.

We also brought a harness so that DS could walk by himself and we wouldnt loose him. He wasnt tall enough to hold our hand for very long without both of us being uncomfortable and he was still a bit unstable when it comes to walking. The harness was great for both of us!!

HAVE FUN!!

 

[GottaLuvMickey]

We are going back to Disney in September. Our DD will have just turned 1 2 weeks before. Anyone have any experience in taking a 12 month old? Any tips or advice?

I am dreading packing that many diapers & stuff. Do you have to drag a lot of stuff to the parks with you? How did you pack baby food in your luggage? Will the airlines let you pack baby food?

Any help or information is greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!!!
Renae

I was literally about to post this EXACT same thing! We are leaving on Sept 12th to head to Disney World for DD's "birthday trip" but she really will turn 1 on Sept 4th! When are you guys going?

 

[3mickeymom]

There are lots of place to sit and let your baby nap in the stroller(if they are comfortable) My son was 14 months on one of our trips but he had two older brothers and it wasn't always convenient to leave the park. I was always able to find a shaded place to sit and people watch while my little one napped. If they are a heavy sleeper and not awakened by noise, all of the stores are connected and air conditioned along Main St. The House of Presidents is good too. You could browse while your little one sleeps. My son didn't nap for much more than an hour, but he definitely needed his nap. Just make sure your little one is not too hot in their stroller. I saw many black colored strollers and this surprised me. I love the little fans that clip on to the strollers. I brought my reclining stroller from home. Oh, and definitely bring a stroller cover for the sudden downpours.

 

[El&kris'mom]

Our son just turned 14 months today. We are in transition with him on food. He still eats baby food, but is also eating some regular food. This time always stressed me out with my other kids. It is soo much easier to just shovel the baby food in and know that they are getting enough!! hee hee Anyway we will be at Disney in June (he'll be 16 months) so ofcourse Im hoping he will be eating alot more regular food by then. I felt like a complete failure when that lady said her 10 month old ate what they ate!! Do you have any suggestions as to what I can offer him, self feeding etc. He is our 4th - we took a long break - our others are 9, 12 and 14 so this is like starting over again. You really do forget alot. I stress soo much over this!

My DS is almost 8 months old and does not like baby food. They only thing I can get him to still eat is rice cereal mixed with Apple sauce.
He is currently finger feeding with a variety of things (mac and cheese, grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, stuffing, cooked chicken, pork, steak, well cooked veggies, gerber diced fruits, cherrios, gerber yogurt melts and puffs and Yobaby yogurt. We are constantly introducting new things. Good luck

 

[dtripli]

My DS is almost 8 months old and does not like baby food. They only thing I can get him to still eat is rice cereal mixed with Apple sauce.
He is currently finger feeding with a variety of things (mac and cheese, grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, stuffing, cooked chicken, pork, steak, well cooked veggies, gerber diced fruits, cherrios, gerber yogurt melts and puffs and Yobaby yogurt. We are constantly introducting new things. Good luck

Thanks for your advice. Can you give me any example of how much your baby eats. I mean if you fed him mac n cheese for lunch, what size portion would you be happy with him eating - knowing it was enough? Also - about how long does he sit for a meal? My DS is eating alot of the things you mentioned; although we don't do very well with meats. I made roasted chicken last night and he just chewed on a piece for quite awhile and then spit it out. He does eat some of the gerber graduate meals.

 

[Colleen27]

Thanks for your advice. Can you give me any example of how much your baby eats. I mean if you fed him mac n cheese for lunch, what size portion would you be happy with him eating - knowing it was enough? Also - about how long does he sit for a meal? My DS is eating alot of the things you mentioned; although we don't do very well with meats. I made roasted chicken last night and he just chewed on a piece for quite awhile and then spit it out. He does eat some of the gerber graduate meals.

I don't worry about what is enough. DD will let me know if she's hungry or if she's full. But for storage and sitters, an easy way to portion baby's table foods is to reuse the glass jars that baby food or Graduates diced foods come in. My preference is not to buy the breads/flavors that are packaged in plastic, but if you use those I'm sure they'd work just as well.

 

[HGD24]

Thanks for your advice. Can you give me any example of how much your baby eats. I mean if you fed him mac n cheese for lunch, what size portion would you be happy with him eating - knowing it was enough? Also - about how long does he sit for a meal? My DS is eating alot of the things you mentioned; although we don't do very well with meats. I made roasted chicken last night and he just chewed on a piece for quite awhile and then spit it out. He does eat some of the gerber graduate meals.

Portion sizes are tough. Some kids like big meals and others are grazers. Our DD does both depending on the day and her mood. Now that she's more mobile, she tends to graze alot more.

We knew when our DD had had enough food when she began playing with it or tossing it on the floor. We'd say "Are you all done?" and offer her a couple of more pieces of what she was eating. If those got played with or tossed on the floor too, we'd say, "All done", get her cleaned up and take her out of the highchair. She learned fairly quickly how to motion her hands for "all done" and now she motions and says the word "done".

We have also taught DD signs for eat, more, milk & please. These have helped us all tremendously when it comes to communicating her needs and wants. After a few weeks she also began saying the words along with the signs.

 

[SandiKB]

We use the Dr. Brown's bottles which have so many parts. She was very colicy the first 8 weeks and the bottles really helped!

We use Dr Browns as well, on a recent trip to DC I packed dish soap and the reg bottle brush as well as the Dr Browns brush, when I had used a bottle when we were out, I just fillled it w/water to keep the parts from getting yucky, and hand washed them all each evening, drying on a towel on the counter. You can prob get dish soap at Everything Pop

 

[El&kris'mom]

Thanks for your advice. Can you give me any example of how much your baby eats. I mean if you fed him mac n cheese for lunch, what size portion would you be happy with him eating - knowing it was enough? Also - about how long does he sit for a meal? My DS is eating alot of the things you mentioned; although we don't do very well with meats. I made roasted chicken last night and he just chewed on a piece for quite awhile and then spit it out. He does eat some of the gerber graduate meals.

I use the Kraft easy Mac and Cheese and give him about 1/3 of the bowl, DS (5 yrs) eats the rest, Grilled Cheese, he eats half the sandwich and DS (5) will eat the rest, 2 chicken nuggets, 1 egg scrambled, 1 slice of american cheese broken up into little pieces, as far at the meat it has to be tender (and I cut it up super small almost like it is shredded - I cook most of my meats in the crockpot too so the meat just falls apart)
We sat down last night at 5:45 and I was cleaning everyone up around 6:30. The baby had his bottle while we were at Kung Fu with DS (5) and that was around 5.
Hope this helps

 

[dryvithome]

We are going back to Disney in September. Our DD will have just turned 1 2 weeks before. Anyone have any experience in taking a 12 month old? Any tips or advice?

I am dreading packing that many diapers & stuff. Do you have to drag a lot of stuff to the parks with you? How did you pack baby food in your luggage? Will the airlines let you pack baby food?

Any help or information is greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks!!!
Renae

We took our son for his 1 yr birthday in Jan and it was great. It was his 2nd trip (3rd if you count in utero). We tend to drive to WDW rather than fly because of all the stuff that we end up taking. It's about a thousand miles, give or take, but he rode pretty well. The big thing that we found useful each time was sunscreen. Definitely a big help to keep him from being burned. We didn't take too much into the parks because we decided we'd head back at nap times to the room and take it easy. It made it much easier and he was a lot happier than if we had tried to go commando mode in the parks.

His favorite ride was the one with Figment at Epcot, although he did well with POC, Pooh, and almost all of the characters. Biggest problem was when we decided to not wait in a line to see Tigger since it looked to be about 30-40 mins and he flipped out. He likes Tigger a bunch, but we had booked the character dinner at the Crystal Palace so that worked out.

The baby care centers were pretty good as well. We usually took the time to head to one to feed him lunch as they have highchairs and are air conditioned which would probably be more important in Sept. We're headed back at the end of the month as my wife has a conference down there and he and I will get to go to the parks while she has meetings all day.

Either way, hope you have fun and enjoy it. I'd just say try to work at her pace and things will go a lot smoother than if you try to force her into doing stuff and tiring her out too much. Screaming children have a way of grating on nerves which can make the trip seem worse than it really is.

 

[Westiefan]

We did Disney with our 12 mo old last year (and due to return in about 25 days w/ now two year old--what a difference a year makes I might add, speaking in sentences about Cinderella and Ariel as well as Mickey).
Bring a comfy stroller that reclines for sleeping. I have a Bob and it is awsome-comfy and incredible sun shade. I wheeled my son around once for 4 hours in a Peg stroller and he never fell asleep--back probably too hard. She took almost all her naps in that thing and slept thru a lot of Disney. I sat out a lot of rides while she slept. Pushes like a dream!
Watch out for over stimulation-it happens so easy at Disney w/ lights and sound.
I think my daughter ate better in terms of nutrition at Disney than at home--I could always order her a grilled chicken breast and green beans at dinner. My tip-she would never eat it all and I would save it in fridge and bring it to dinner the next night. I would rather have that than order junk food. (She ate only table food at that time). I think I brought tiny tupperware with me for that purpose.
I brought puffs etc for her. I also had the reusualbe dinner thing others have mentioned. It is cheaper in long run than the peel off ones and my baby would have definitely peeled them off during dinner.
I would bring a lightweight light colored blanket ( I will have to add that to my list for this year) to put on stoller shade to reflect sun. I brought a receiving blanket--easy to pack and can also be used in a pinch for diaper change, but I brought another one for that.
She was on milk at that point, but I did buy Enfamil next step for her and brought that (not the whole thing) to use in parks so milk not get warm.... Bought milk at GF store in largest size available.
I also bought a great diaper bag at Target for Disne--very small and had compartments that expanded - I think it was only 10$. Put bottle/food in middle and stuffed diapers and wipes in front along with bandaids/ tylenol (you never know). I bought stick on thermometer readers instead of bringing a thermometer.
Hope these tips help.

 

[dtripli]

I use the Kraft easy Mac and Cheese and give him about 1/3 of the bowl, DS (5 yrs) eats the rest, Grilled Cheese, he eats half the sandwich and DS (5) will eat the rest, 2 chicken nuggets, 1 egg scrambled, 1 slice of american cheese broken up into little pieces, as far at the meat it has to be tender (and I cut it up super small almost like it is shredded - I cook most of my meats in the crockpot too so the meat just falls apart)
We sat down last night at 5:45 and I was cleaning everyone up around 6:30. The baby had his bottle while we were at Kung Fu with DS (5) and that was around 5.
Hope this helps

It does - thank you....DS is teething too; so I think this adding to our meal time woos. Do you break up the 1/2 grill cheese sandwich or just give it to him?

 

[HGD24]

It does - thank you....DS is teething too; so I think this adding to our meal time woos. Do you break up the 1/2 grill cheese sandwich or just give it to him?

We still break up foods for our DD. She is just now to the point of being able to take bites from larger pieces of food, but most times she can't. You could always cut the 1/2 sandwich in quarters and see how your son does with them.

 

[El&kris'mom]

It does - thank you....DS is teething too; so I think this adding to our meal time woos. Do you break up the 1/2 grill cheese sandwich or just give it to him?

I break up the grilled cheese sandwich. Last night I tried Pizza, I had cut up the pizza into little pieces but he didn't want anything to do with the little pieces after he saw us eating the pizza slices, so i gave him a thin slices of pizza - he ate all the cheese and sauce off the slice and then was done. I also gave him a cut up banana with it so he at all of the banana.