tips on making toddler comfortable with characters

[braydensmom]

looking for a few ideas on how to keep my son comfortable and relaxed when visiting the costumed characters on our next trip. He will roughly be 2.5.

TIA

 

[Sandi S]

Try to expose him to other characters in costume - maybe a kids' night at a local restaurant? You would at least get a feel for how he does with them. My DD2 was freaked out by the Disney characters, but she'd never seen anything like that before.

 

[Winnie23]

Our twin girls have been to Disney at 9 months, 1.5 yrs, 2.5 years, and so on. They have never been afraid of the characters. When they were about one, we bought some of those Disney Sing Along Song videos. There are ones that are all clips/songs from movies and then there are ones with Mickey and all the characters (in costume, just like at the parks) singing and dancing throughout the whole video. We have a camping one, a beach one, and a Disneyland one. The girls loved them! We watched those a lot before our earlier trips and maybe that helped. They were actually more timid around the real people characters like Cinderella. Hope you have a wonderful trip!!

 

[Wendybird55]

I did both of what the PPs said when we went last year. It was my sons first time and he was almost 2. We took hom to some local amusement parks to see how he was on rides and with costumed charaters and to theme character nights in some local restaurants. I figured if he liked the Easter Bunny they had a Perkins he'd be fine with Disney characters.

I also bught one of those Disney DVDs with costuemd characters and Disney music - he wasn't interested - found it borig and didn't want to watch it - he prefers Mickey Mouse Club!

A character meal might be good in that your child and see them from a distance as they walk thru the restaurant. Also the characteres are very good with not forcing themselves on scared or upset children. There are many opportunites for you child to see characters from a distance at Disney - parades - walking thur parks by meet and greets before you take them up close.

Good Luck

 

[bratmomma]

My DD just turned three. I have showed her meet and greets on youtube and pics of her brothers with the characters from our last trip. I explained to her that the characters are big like Mommy and Daddy but very friendly and nice. I told her she could have her picture taken with them and hug them if she wanted, or she could just wave to them if she wanted.

She seems okay, I guess we'll find out when we get there how she does.

 

[monorailsilver]

I really don't think there is a way if they are scared they will be scared.

My oldest was 15 months when we took her. She hated the face characters (Cinderella, Fairy Godmother, etc...) but loved the other ones (Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, etc..). She leaped out of our arms to go & see Pooh & his friends but was so shy when it came to Cinderella. Suzi or Perla held her while she was next to Cindy as that was the only way she was getting close to her.

My son was 22 months when we took him. He wouldn't go near one character if we were not next to him. He liked them all but if he was not clutched next to either myself or dh in our arms, he was havnig no part in the characters.

My youngest was 2½ when we took her for her first trip last year. Lets just say she had no problem ditching us to see any of the characters. It did help that her older siblings weren't shy anymore & loved seeing everyone.

 

[scoopsanderson]

I don't think you can really tell how they'll react until you get there. My 2.5 year old was so excited to see Goofy, and then when Goofy stepped towards him he started screaming his little head off. For the rest of the trip, he was wary of the characters. Fine to wave at them from afar, but didn't want to go anywhere near them unless he was in my arms, and being held on the opposite side away from the character.

Now, though, he loves watching the video of him running away from Goofy screaming. It's kind of funny ...

 

[lovebuzz]

An autograph book might help. That is what we did with our son. At first I would carry him over and have him hand them the book and the he started doing it by himself and finally after probably the 6th time he was running up with the book and hugging them.

 

[ktlm]

Books is what did it for us. We had a box set of small Disney board books with all the characters (got them at Ross, but I've seen them at Kohl's too). We also had some golden books of the different Disney stories. (I've also seen tons of the used Disney book club books at Half Price Books and the dollar store also has some Disney board books). We looked at the books with DD all the time for a few months before we took her on her 1st trip last December when she was 2 years 10 months. When she got to WDW, she was so incredibly excited to see the characters from her books she practically tackled each one she saw. She was absolutely crazy about all the characters. If we didn't want to stand in line right then we had to block them from her view before she saw them and get her out of the area FAST.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

We watched A LOT of movies prior to our trip.

If you are nervous of how they'll act, the kids will pick up on the nervous vibe. I made sure to be as positive (and excited, I can't lie...) about meeting the characters as we could. We had our autograph book and started with Mickey. DH went up with DS (I was manning the camera) and DS was so excited (thanks to all the build up prior to our trip, "only ... days until we meet Mickey") all the others were a piece of cake.

 

[princess pooh]

DS isn't afraid of much so I didn't think he's react to the characters. I was wrong...he completely freaked.

Towards the end of our trip we stopped by the character spot in the UK and there was no line for Pooh and Tigger. I held him in my arms and they spent a lot of time entertaining him from across the room. He slowly warmed up to them and I finally got some decent pics with the characters. He had no problem with face characters though, just the big and furry guys.

 

[A&E'sMom]

Before our first trip with our oldest boys, we tried to introduce them to other costumed characters beforehand, anywhere that we could- the zoo when Scooby-Doo or Ronald McDonald was there, Chuck E Cheese, even a trip through a local costume shop. They had no problems with any of this, and absolutely loved the Disney characters. With the toddler we have now, we recently visited a local amusement park to see Porky Pig and others, to test him out, as well as took him up to see Chuck E Cheese during a birthday party. He doesn't like them at all! I'm going to keep doing these little introductions, but I can see him not being fond of Mickey or Pooh as well.

 

[btwitkin]

My 5 y.o. DS has already stated on numerous occasions he is scared to meet the characters (we are taking him there for his 1st trip in less than 4 weeks). We have told him that he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to.

We asked if he would wave to them from a distance and he said yes. I also plan on going up to them myself while my wife is with him, so he can see there is nothing to be scared of.

Every kid is different. We hope he warms up to them, but we wont force him to do anything.