3 year old dining

[Hurricaneduke77]

Hi all! I'm glad to be joining these boards after years of listening to the podcast. My wife and I have been to WDW alot, but not since our daughter was born. We are taking our 3 year old daughter to WDW in June for her 3rd birthday and are wondering what might be the best kid-friendly places to take her to eat. Thanks in advance for any advice!

[HauntedGabe]

While I'm not a fan, Character buffet meals are real hits with most kids and if they are afraid they back off.
Loud restaurants are always great, no worries if they are too loud. Careful with Peco's many of the chairs don't have backs and I've seen many kids crack their heads. If you need quiet, upstairs in Columbia house is perfect.
Pizzafari at AK is so much fun for little ones to look around and Sunshine in the Land is excellent for families.
DHS, SciFi is great for fun, not so much the food.

When mine were small we often just picked up fruit from stands, or a hotdog from Liberty Square, something from the stands around the lake in DHS. It was more filling the tummies than trying to fit in a proper meal on weird sleep/nap schedules. All the hotels have limited food pool side at the resorts too. We often took a break mid-day and that was perfect for them.

[Aurora1976]

I've been twice with my kids (January 2012 when they were 5 and 3; and in January 2011 when they were 4 and 2). My youngest, especially, has always been difficult in restaurants, and I was really stressed out about the idea of eating out with him for a whole week while at Disney the first time. He's on the autism spectrum, and truthfully, we'd pretty much given up on eating out with him before going on our first Disney trip. Happily, all of our restaurant experiences there were GREAT! The staff and the food, the atmosphere - everything is so kid-friendly, while also being fun and relaxing for the adults, that we had wonderful experiences at every restaurant. Character meals were a highlight for us on both trips. The kids loved them. Buffets were nice because there's such a wide selection of food, though we also made sure to be careful not to do too many table-service meals in a row for fear of the kids becoming restless. So we did a lot of table service meals too. We found several that were able to split with the kids (ordering 2 adult meals and splitting between the four of us) and it was plenty of food. My biggest advice though it to make sure to pack/buy lots of snacks. Little tummies get hungry quickly and can't fill up on just a few big meals a day. And hungry kids, in my experience, are cranky kids, so we kept lots of fruit, granola bars, juice boxes, crackers, etc., on hand to feed while in line or having a little downtime in the parks or at the hotel. Lots of filling, healthy snacks helped us ease up on meals too - we didn't have to worry as much about making sure they ate enough in the restaurants.