First - let me welcome you to the DL Board!!!!! It's nice to have new folks, as they remind us when we were new.
I have a 3 yr old that is a
Disneyland addict. She never wants to go home.
That being said, how you work your way through the parks is much different with little ones in tow. You won't be able to get it "all done" unless you plan for multiple days and stay close.
Here's some concepts for you to toss around before you start making final reservations.
1) You need to consider how you would do your average day in the park. Visualize what you want to get out of your trip. Are you looking for priceless memories? Will you stop and watch the passing entertainment, or will you be off to the next ride? Are you planning on taking advantage of priceless "pass out" time doing adult attractions while your child sleeps in the stroller? Does your child need to nap in the hotel room because they aren't that type of child? Once you give yourself answers to these questions, then you start to answer the next set....
2) What's my budget? Is it worth it to stay at a property (Disney-owned) hotel? Advantage - close enough to crash and come back quickly with some perks for guests. Disadvantage - more costly. If the answer is no, start looking at the hotels on Harbor - across the street - HoJo (Howard Johnson's) and the like. Better prices, but a bit of a walk and not as easy to come and go as often (but some like HoJo are technically just as close as the Disney Paradise Pier).
3) Have you taken a vacation away from home before? How many days was it and how did your child do? Does your child get overstimulated easily? Do trips make your child homesick? How is your personal stress level on trips with your child (that one is important and most people don't consider it). These, along with the questions in #1 wil determine the number of days you want to try. If you plan on making memories - go slower for more days. This allows you pool breaks, time together at meals , time with characters, time for parades, time for just playing and smelling the roses and the goats at Big Thunder Ranch.
4) Go online and look at the info here on
www.wdwinfo.com. There is a lot of great DL info and will be more to come. Keep asking specific questions about things that interest you in your research. The folks here are best at the specific questions. Broad "plan my trip" ones cover so much info they are daunting to answer. Most of us could spend 6 hours planning your trip, but don't have time to type that much. Questions like "have you done X show and what did you think" get really fast responses. Or "X hotel and Y hotel - which did you like better?" Those get you 20 responses in 24 hours. Or more!
Hope this helps you start!
I am a first time user to this site and am very excited to be planning our first trip to DL with our 3yr old daughter. We are going the first full week of Oct. We are looking at spending maybe 3days in the area. I am looking for some great trip ideas like what not to miss, great deals and hotel recommendations. Any idea's on how long of a trip we should take with a 3yr old? I have looked over the board a little, but if anyone has ideas on past post I would love to take a look at them. 
