WDW with autism and medical needs

[*blessedbyHim*]

We have taken our daughter to WDW twice with wonderful success both times. We are planning another trip this fall and are trying to cover all of our bases now that she is getting older and her needs are different.

She has multiple food allergies and I feel we have a good handle on how to handle that as long as everything is the same as last trip. Have the been any changes that have taken place in the last two years? Maybe some allergy friendly foods are becoming more accessible? We always had good luck with table service and could muddle through for QS, but I am hoping finding her an appropriate dessert is easier now that she will likely be wanting them. We used her stroller as a wheelchair last time and likely will again because it worked well for her. She will want to walk sometimes, but we may even use her stroller more now because she is getting too big to just carry a lot of times. My big questions are if anyone has some good suggestions for us regarding her autism. We are doing the stroller which will help her feel more secure and calm and we are bringing her earmuffs for the loud things. Any other great suggestions or something you think could help?



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[MaggieMollyMom]

My best suggestion would be to go to the Parks EARLY! Do the attractions you want to do the most and then take a break and go back later to enjoy the later afternoon and evening. Touring plans have helped us the most. Yes, a "Stroller as a Wheelchair" tag is helpful, but the crowds get crazy causing lots of anxiety, and no GAC is going to help with that! So, we go early and try to do the faves. We went to MK one day and went right to the new Dumbo so the girls could play.....there was NO ONE ELSE THERE!!! for about 1/2 hour, DD had the place to herself (sis wanted to take a ride)! so cool!

I can't really help with the allergy issues.

good luck and have a great time!

We have taken our daughter to WDW twice with wonderful success both times. We are planning another trip this fall and are trying to cover all of our bases now that she is getting older and her needs are different.

She has multiple food allergies and I feel we have a good handle on how to handle that as long as everything is the same as last trip. Have the been any changes that have taken place in the last two years? Maybe some allergy friendly foods are becoming more accessible? We always had good luck with table service and could muddle through for QS, but I am hoping finding her an appropriate dessert is easier now that she will likely be wanting them. We used her stroller as a wheelchair last time and likely will again because it worked well for her. She will want to walk sometimes, but we may even use her stroller more now because she is getting too big to just carry a lot of times. My big questions are if anyone has some good suggestions for us regarding her autism. We are doing the stroller which will help her feel more secure and calm and we are bringing her earmuffs for the loud things. Any other great suggestions or something you think could help?



We

We will likely w

 

[clanmcculloch]

Even 2 years ago allergy desserts were pretty easy for us to find so I'm wondering if your DD has allergies that made some of the desserts that were available at the time off limits? Products have changed a LOT in the past 2 years. You won't find any French Meadows, Divvies or Ener-G anywhere. They now have OMG It's Gluten Free and Enjoy Life products all over the place and the breads are either GNI or Udi's depending on the location.

The absolute most beneficial thing for us for our 15yo's autism is touring plans. By studying up on crowd patterns and park occupancy patterns, we can keep her out of crowded areas and avoid lines. We do use a GAC a little bit but mainly for places where really your stroller as a wheelchair can accomplish the same thing as the GAC (she can't wait in mob waiting areas because of people crowding around her so we need to be able to wait separately; with the stroller you're creating a barrier around her so you may not need that). I'm a big fan of easywdw.com for learning how to touring efficiently.

Something else that is really important to her is to maintain our at home schedule. At home we wake up early, eat an early light breakfast, eat lunch early (schools are insane with how early they feed kids) and we also go to bed early. We maintain this schedule at WDW. If DD15 gets hungry or tired then we are guaranteed a meltdown.

DD15 can only handle a certain amount of time away from the resort. After 2 park days we have to do a resort day. Things go really badly if we don't take that full resort day. It's a good thing DD12 (she's not autistic) loves her pool time and gladly spends the day in the pool. On days we do go to parks it's pretty much always for rope drop (again, our at home schedule has us up early so this works for us) and then we leave right after our lunch ADR. That really only gives us 2-3 hours of touring per day max but boy are those happy hours and because of our use of efficient touring plans, we also accomplish a lot in that time. For dinner, we get something from the food court at our resort and eat it in our room because that's all DD15 can cope with after having been away from the resort doing busy stuff during the day.

I know it probably sounds like we really don't do much park stuff when we're at WDW, but we do have a great time and really we do manage to accomplish a lot in the short time we're in the parks thanks to our touring plans and more than anything, we have great family time where everybody is happy together so to me it's a great vacation.

If the stroller as a wheelchair does turn out to not be enough for her to cope with some aspects of the park, just go to Guest Relations and explain what kind of problems you're encountering and they'll do their best to help.