6 simple travel tips for feeding solids | Baby Led Weaning (BLW) at Disney World

Sep 18

Our daughter (9 months old) about to try her first Mickey Waffle at Tusker House

If you have a Baby beginning to eat solids, but not quite eating adult food yet, you might be worrying about how you’ll feed them while at Disney World.

I know I was a bit unsure of our options. When we planned our first family trip to Disney World, our daughter was only 9 months old. She started baby led weaning (BLW) around 6 months old, but was definitely no where near ready to eat common theme park foods like pizzas, hot dogs, and burgers. Being primarily breast fed for 9 months, I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the route of formula now, but I also wasn’t fond of the idea of visiting the Baby Care Centers every 2-3 hours to nurse or using a wearable breast pump throughout the day (especially since I had stopped pumping around 3 months postpartum out of convenience).

Here are my top tips after our recent trip to Disney with our 9 month old daughter who is Baby Led Weaning (BLW).

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Pack BLW Feeding Essentials

Set yourself up for success by packing your own feeding essentials. These are items your Baby is probably used to eating with anyways, which will make the change of scenery easier for them to adapt to during meal times.

There is a quick list of my top BLW Feeding Essentials that I used at WDW:

Silicon bib with pocket* - Silicon bibs with pockets are so much easier to carry around and clean between meals. With a simple wipe or rise, it is ready to be used again. Plus it catches food, which makes the experience overall less messy out in public. I like these way more than the disposable paper bibs many people use when eating out in public.
Silicon feeding mat* - I preferred using a feeding mat over a silicon plate because I felt like it had more surface area for our daughter to eat and it was easier to clean mid-park day. This one, specifically, had pockets at the end to catch food that she might have raked closer to her and would have (without he pockets) fallen in the floor.
Bottle & Pacifier Wipes* - These wipes are different from Baby Wipes. They are more convenient and hygienic no-rinse wipes that can be used to clean your bib, feeding mat, utensils, breast pump parts, pacifiers, and more. After enjoying a meal, these are great to use to wipe down your silicon bib and feeding mat until you can get to a Baby Care Center or your hotel room to give it a thorough clean.

Use instacart to stock up on snacks

If you are staying at an on-site resort within the Disney Bubble, place an Instacart order to stock up on snacks. When you place an Instacart order to your WDW Resort, it will be delivered to Bell Services. You can pick it up yourself from Bell Services or get it delivered to your room for a $6 fee.

Soft Fruits

I’d recommend purchasing soft fruits that are generally safe to store outside of a fridge for a few days and are easy to peel with your hands (if it has a peel) or skin thats unsafe to eat.

While all Disney Resort Hotels have a beverage fridge, they only cool to about 40-degrees Fahrenheit. While this is cold enough to chill drinks, it is not cool enough to safely store food.

Think things like:

Bananas
Clementines
Raspberries
Blueberries
Blackberries
Kiwi

These fruits can be brought into the Parks with you to feed your Baby for snacks or meals.

Baby-Friendly Snacks

Also stock up on baby-friendly snacks. These should be shelf-stable options that are quick to grab and can be fed from anywhere. These will be great when your Baby is a bit peckish, but it isn’t meal time yet or you’re not near a Baby care center.

A few of our favourites include:

Little Bellies Puffs
Serenity Kids Puffs
Happy Baby Organic Teethers

The snacks were really helpful at satisfying her hunger when I couldn’t nurse her right away - like when we’d be in line for a ride.

*AFFILIATE LINK: Get $10 off your first order with Instacart

Take advantage of free table service restaurants

At WDW, children ages 3 and under get to enjoy their meal for free at buffet or all-you-care-to-enjoy table service restaurants.

If you are at a buffet restaurant, take your time browsing the selection. More likely than not, you’ll be able to find a few options your Baby has eaten at home and you feel comfortable feeding.

It may be a little more difficult at all-you-care-to-enjoy restaurants that have a smaller fixed menu.

You’ll want to focus on foods that:

Have minimal salt or sugar added
Are soft enough to pass the pinch test

If you are unsure, at any time, a cast member or your server would be happy to help.

During this last trip, we only ate at one buffet (Tusker House at Breakfast time) and these were some of the foods we felt comfortable feeding our daughter:

Plain scrambled eggs
Cuties mandarins
Bananas
Mickey waffles cut up into bite sized pieces
Cheesy Grits (mieliepap)
Shakshuka
Rice

Order items your Littles already eat at home

For restaurants where you purchase a meal for your Baby, look for items your Baby has already tried and eats pretty often at home. Each child is different, but here are some things we ordered for our Baby that she ate at Disney World:

Mac & Cheese (El Mercado de Coronado & Maya Grill @ Coronado Springs Resort)
Pasta with Alfredo sauce (El Mercado de Coronado @ Coronado Springs Resort)
Glazed chicken breast (Maya Grill @ Coronado Springs Resort)
Grilled cheese (Woody’s Lunch Box @ Hollywood Studios)
Mashed potatoes (El Mercado de Coronado @ Coronado Springs Resort)
Roast chicken (El Mercado de Coronado @ Coronado Springs Resort)
USDA Smoked Brisket (Polite Pig @ Disney Springs)
Pulled Pork (Polite Pig @ Disney Springs)
Mickey Waffle (Sleepy Hollow @ Magic Kingdom)
Egg & Cheese from our Ronto Morning Wrap (Rondo Roasters @ Hollywood Studios)

All we had to do after purchasing these items was cut them into small bite-sized pieces like we’d do from home to make them serving-appropriate for her.

Supplement meals with food pouches

Something that helped us a lot was purchasing baby food pouches.

Up until this point, our daughter had never had store-bought puree baby food. When we first started feeding her solids at 6 months old, we would steam and mash fruits and vegetables we were also eating during that meal to make her homemade purees.

Ideally, it would have been better if we purchased reusable pouches online and made our own baby food pouches, however the beverage coolers in most of the WDW Resorts do not cool below 41-degrees F. This would have potentially messed with the integrity of the homemade baby food I might have made and brought.

That being said, we opted to purchase shelf-stable baby food pouches instead.

We purchased them when we arrived in Florida through Instacart* from Target.

We were very intentional with the pouches we chose to purchase and feed our daughter. We aimed for products that were made with whole foods and did not have any added processed sugars.

These were our top picks, and the ones we felt more confident feeding our daughter were:

Serenity Kids
Cerebelly

For the most part, she ate one pouch a day.

Eat At The Baby Care Centers

If you’re purchasing food from a Quick Service counter, grab your food, escape the heat, and take advantage of the Baby Care Centers. They are indoors, cooled by A/C, and have seating to enjoy your meal. They even have Disney movies playing on the TV while you enjoy your food.

This is a way better option to keep your Littles cool and comfortable during meal times.

While you’re here, don’t forget to refill your water bottles with their filtered water dispenser before you head back to enjoy the parks.

To learn more about the Baby Care Centers at Disney World, check out this blog post.

Be Flexible

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by feeling your Baby at WDW.

More likely than not, unless you do a lot of prep and planning ahead of time, the meals your Baby will eat will either be from nursing, formula, pre-packaged pouches, or theme park food.

While this doesn’t sound ideal on your BLW journey, it’s okay to be flexible and give yourself grace.

One week isn’t going to ruin your Baby’s food preferences or eating skills.

This may even be a good opportunity to introduce your Baby to foods they haven’t tried yet.

Once you get home, you can hop back into your BLW routine, but until then don’t stress yourself out so much.