In park naps

seabreezept813

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We are planning a trip for next August and my baby will be 16 months old. We are used to being park commandos, but obviously need to adjust. There will be 4 adults for one baby so I think she will be in great hands. For those who have traveled with babes, did they nap in the parks or was it better to go back to the hotel? We are thinking we’ll plan indoor sit down meals midday to get reprieve from the heat. We are also planning on having break days. Right now my baby is a fantastic night sleeper but very sporadic napper.. and she has no trouble being on the go at 3 months. Thank you for any advice
 

Master Yoda

Pro Star Wars geek.
Premium Member
Ours napped in the park. Every park has child care centers that are perfect for this. You can also find a quiet out of the way corner or if your kid is like my youngest, any outdoor concert will do just fine.

P1070586.JPG
 

Gillyanne

Well-Known Member
My niece has napped in the parks, but I feel it's going to get tougher and tougher b/c she's now at that age where she can basically force herself to stay awake because she doesn't want to miss a thing. We were often there when it was hot and I found finding a nice cool spot did her in (one time we just waited like 15 minutes (in a nice cool queue) for the the little mermaid ride and after we got off, she was out in the stroller before we got to BOG; I went into the Pinocchio restaurant, found a spot on a bench (not at a table, but there was a spot like between 2 tables and I asked the occupants if they minded if I sat there while she slept and I could tilt the stroller back) and just chilled out while she slept. There was also at time when you could still get into Innoventions West that there's a bit open area and when nothing was going on the lights were pretty dim so I walked her around there to get her to pass out and again just sat and chilled in the cool air...

:: edit oh I found a picture ::
Gnome Nap WDW 2016.jpg
 
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HoustonHorn

Premium Member
As you can see in my avatar, our then 23-month old was a park napper. We are early morning folks who rope dropped daily. She would take a nap whenever she was tired, then wake up and be ready to go. One of the best days was when she fell asleep on my shoulder in line for Barnstormer, woke up for the ride, then slept through lunch at Be Our Guest. Your plan for mid-day meals in the AC will help. Have fun!
 

RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
It’ll depend on your kid. I would recommend trying to get your kid to nap in a stroller occasionally leading up to your trip.
We’re planning a trip in December with our then-to-be 19 month old and her 6 year old brother. Our general plan will be to rope drop, stay through lunch then hit the hotel for relax time. Maybe DD will nap. Maybe not. Then head out in the evening. But we do have a couple of whole day park days planned and we hope she will sleep in the stroller for those.
 

dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
The stroller we rent in park is the same we own at home, so our DS is quite used to sleeping in it. When we went down at 14mo ~ish we also got good use out of the Ergo carrier. If he didn't fall asleep in the stroller and was obviously tired I could just put him in the Ergo and he would be out cold in 5 minutes tops. Admittedly that limited our ability to do rides and such, but the 45 mins we would lose during naps was much less than taking time to transit to/from the hotel room.
 

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
Our kids also napped in the stroller. All kids are different but if they get tired enough they will more then likely just fall asleep.
 

CaptainAmerica

Premium Member
We are planning a trip for next August and my baby will be 16 months old. We are used to being park commandos, but obviously need to adjust. There will be 4 adults for one baby so I think she will be in great hands. For those who have traveled with babes, did they nap in the parks or was it better to go back to the hotel? We are thinking we’ll plan indoor sit down meals midday to get reprieve from the heat. We are also planning on having break days. Right now my baby is a fantastic night sleeper but very sporadic napper.. and she has no trouble being on the go at 3 months. Thank you for any advice
Break days get very boring by lunch time. I'd recommend doing half days every day or morning-and-evening days with afternoons off rather than full days on and full days off. It's much easier for everyone's body and sleep schedule to adapt to constant moderately paced days than very busy days mixed with very slow days.
 

jaklgreen

Well-Known Member
Break days get very boring by lunch time. I'd recommend doing half days every day or morning-and-evening days with afternoons off rather than full days on and full days off. It's much easier for everyone's body and sleep schedule to adapt to constant moderately paced days than very busy days mixed with very slow days.

Good advice. We took it nice and slow when our kids were young. We did not set any kind of alarm and would let everyone wake up when they naturally did. Then we would go to the parks and ride a couple of things, have lunch, ride a couple more, sit down and have a break, rinse repeat. The point is we took it very slow and relaxing and let the kids dictate the pace. If they wanted to stop and look at the ducks for 20 minutes, then that is what we did.
 

CaptainAmerica

Premium Member
Good advice. We took it nice and slow when our kids were young. We did not set any kind of alarm and would let everyone wake up when they naturally did. Then we would go to the parks and ride a couple of things, have lunch, ride a couple more, sit down and have a break, rinse repeat. The point is we took it very slow and relaxing and let the kids dictate the pace. If they wanted to stop and look at the ducks for 20 minutes, then that is what we did.
We're "lucky" (if you can call it that) that our daughters' normal wake up time is no later than 7am. We've always hit rope drop without even trying, but it's important that they're in bed no later than 9pm and have at least an hour proper nap in the middle of the day.
 

Spash007

Well-Known Member
I think it depends on how your kids normally naps. Our daughter normally is in a crib/bed, but we know that in "shared" situations where she sees us, she won't nap in the bed. However, she's always been a great napper on the move (stroller, car, etc) and that was the same in WDW. She would fall asleep in the stroller, we'd put a fan on her, and if it was time for us to leave the park, many times she would wake up for a second coming out of the stroller, and sleep the rest of the bus ride.
 

seabreezept813

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Break days get very boring by lunch time. I'd recommend doing half days every day or morning-and-evening days with afternoons off rather than full days on and full days off. It's much easier for everyone's body and sleep schedule to adapt to constant moderately paced days than very busy days mixed with very slow days.

Good point.. our break days usually mean sleeping in, going to the pool and then going to the boardwalk or a park late afternoon. Early mornings will probably be normal for us as I teach high school and need to get her to daycare by 7. Right now my little love likes to nap on me, but not sure how fun that will be when she’s 30 lbs in the Florida heat.
 

EricPZ

Active Member
Adorable! Looks like you used an umbrella stroller. Did that work well? Thanks!
I prefer the umbrella to the larger one cuz it folds smaller when on Disney transportation cuz it folds up and doesn't take up so much space when things are a little crowded.
 
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correcaminos

Well-Known Member
Ours never napped in the stroller. I wouldn't want to do it anyway, as it was a nice break to go back to the room. At that age we were only at 1 nap so it was easy to have lunch and then go back for a few hours. Did that until youngest reached 5 and finally stopped napping LOL
 

JMcMahonEsq

Well-Known Member
My first question would be, where are you staying? If you are staying at a monorail resort, such as the Poly, or especially the Contemporary, its a no brainer to just go back to the hotel. August in in Florida is going to be massively hot. While my youngsters at that age easily napped in their strollers, it was usually not in 95+ degree heat and humidity. They also would normally nap with a blanket or something covering them, both to keep the sun out of their eyes, and to help them not be distracted by everything going on around them...an option not available in the Florida heat.

At that age, you are probably hoping for at least a 30min nap, with 60min being a vacation gold standard nap. Taking into account the time you are going to take trying to find a spot that makes a nap even possible, without the noise, sun, heat of the mid day, then putting the baby down and hoping they actually fall asleep, you are probably looking at 60-90min period of time. If you are anywhere on property, I just go back to the hotel, let them get a good nap in, which will hopefully make your afternoon-evening at the park longer and more enjoyable. A couple hour break in the AC at the hotel won't hurt the adults in the group either.
 

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