There are a surprising number of Disneyland rides for infants because many attractions have no minimum height requirement. When we took our triplets, the day obviously looked nothing like a ride-maximizing adult Disneyland trip, but we weren’t limited to sitting around watching everyone else ride either.
Disney currently marks attractions such as Peter Pan’s Flight, “it’s a small world,” Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean and Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway as Any Height.
And if your baby is 2 or younger, there’s another useful benefit: Disneyland does not require a theme park ticket for children under age 3.
For me, the trick isn’t simply finding every ride a baby is technically able to board. It’s deciding which ones actually make sense with an infant, which ones are dark or loud, and when it’s easier to let one adult ride while the other stays with the baby.
The Disneyland Rides I’d Start With for a Baby
If I were taking an infant to Disneyland Park again, these are the rides I’d look at first. Disney currently lists all of them without a minimum height requirement.
- “it’s a small world” – Slow boat ride, colorful scenes and plenty for a baby to look at.
- Peter Pan’s Flight – A short Fantasyland dark ride that lets the whole family experience one of Disneyland’s classics together.
- Dumbo the Flying Elephant – Simple, short and visually easy for little kids to understand.
- The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh – Another slow-moving dark ride with bright characters and music.
- Storybook Land Canal Boats – A calm outdoor boat trip through miniature Disney settings.
- Casey Jr. Circus Train – A gentle way to see parts of Fantasyland from a different angle.
- Jungle Cruise – No height requirement and a nice change from indoor Fantasyland rides.
- Disneyland Railroad – More transportation than thrill ride, but one of my favorite options when everyone needs to sit down for a while.
- King Arthur Carrousel – Right in the middle of Fantasyland and easy to combine with the surrounding attractions.
I wouldn’t try to do all of these just because they’re available. With infants, I found it much easier to stay flexible and use whichever nearby ride had a reasonable wait rather than dragging everyone across the park for a checklist.
If you want to compare those with everything else in the park, my complete Disneyland ride list is the better place to see the full attraction lineup.
Any Height Doesn’t Always Mean Calm
This is where I think a simple list of “baby-friendly Disneyland rides” can be misleading.
Several Disneyland attractions have no minimum height but are still dark, loud, spooky, fast-moving in places or visually intense.
Pirates of the Caribbean, for example, is listed by Disney as Any Height, but it includes dark scenes and a waterfall drop. Haunted Mansion is also Any Height, but Disney describes it as dark and scary. Snow White’s Enchanted Wish, Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Pinocchio’s Daring Journey are other rides I’d judge based on the baby rather than assuming “no height requirement” means completely gentle.
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage is another interesting one. There’s no height requirement, but you’re entering an enclosed submarine environment rather than sitting in an open ride vehicle.
Our approach was to start with the obvious gentle rides and add the darker ones only if everyone was having a good day.
California Adventure Has Infant Rides Too
If you’re visiting both parks, you aren’t limited to Disneyland Park.
Disney currently lists several Disney California Adventure rides as Any Height, including:
- The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure
- Monsters, Inc. Mike & Sulley to the Rescue!
- Jessie’s Critter Carousel
- Toy Story Midway Mania!
- Golden Zephyr
- Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind
- WEB SLINGERS: A Spider-Man Adventure
- Pixar Pal-A-Round
For a very young baby, I’d personally start with The Little Mermaid or Monsters, Inc. before worrying about fitting every possible Any Height attraction into the day.
The important thing is that California Adventure doesn’t become an adults-only park just because you’re traveling with an infant.
Babies Under 3 Don’t Need a Disneyland Ticket
This is one of the easier parts of planning.
Disney currently says children ages 2 and younger do not need theme park admission. Disneyland’s child ticket category starts at age 3.
That means a baby doesn’t need their own paid ticket or park reservation.
Once a child turns 3, normal admission and park reservation requirements apply.
If you’re buying tickets for everyone else, my Disneyland ticket guide covers the current ticket types.
Rider Switch Is What Makes the Bigger Rides Possible
Having a baby doesn’t mean both adults have to skip every attraction with a height requirement.
Disneyland’s Rider Switch service lets one part of your group ride while another Guest stays outside the queue with someone who can’t or doesn’t plan to ride. When the first group finishes, the waiting Guest can ride without going through the standard queue again.
Disney currently says to bring the entire group to the attraction entrance and tell a Cast Member that you want to use Rider Switch. The Cast Member will divide the group into two parties and set up the return access for the second group.
This mattered much more to us than trying to turn every hour into a baby-only attraction hour. One person could stay with the babies while the other rode, and then we could switch.
That makes attractions such as Space Mountain, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, Indiana Jones Adventure and other height-restricted rides much easier to work into a family trip.
I Would Learn the Baby Care Center Location Before I Needed It
The Baby Care Center was one of the few pieces of Disneyland planning that genuinely made our days easier with infants.
At Disneyland Park, the Baby Care Center is at the end of Main Street, U.S.A., next to First Aid.
At Disney California Adventure, it’s in San Fransokyo Square near Ghirardelli Soda Fountain and Chocolate Shop.
Disney currently provides nursing chairs, changing tables, a feeding area with highchairs, a sink, bottle warmers and limited-use microwave access. There’s also a vending machine where you can purchase things such as formula, baby food, diapers, wipes and pacifiers if something gets forgotten.
Baby-changing stations are also available in most Disneyland Resort restrooms, so you don’t have to walk across the entire park for every diaper change.
I wouldn’t structure the whole day around the Baby Care Center, but I absolutely want to know where it is before I suddenly need it.
Your Stroller Has to Fit Disney’s Size Rule
If you’re bringing your own stroller, check its measurements before the trip.
Disneyland currently does not allow strollers larger than 31 inches wide by 52 inches long. Wagons and stroller wagons are also prohibited under the general stroller rules.
Disney also warns that Cast Members may move parked strollers for operational reasons, so I never assume the stroller will be sitting in exactly the same position when I return.
I go further into those rules in my Disneyland stroller policy guide.
With Babies, Fantasyland Worked Better for Us Early
I don’t think every family with an infant needs to follow the same Disneyland itinerary, but Fantasyland is one place where an early start makes sense to me.
Several Any Height rides are packed into a relatively small area, so we could move between Peter Pan, Dumbo, Casey Jr., Storybook Land and the other nearby attractions without repeatedly crossing Disneyland with strollers and baby gear.
Once the day became hotter or everyone needed a reset, I cared less about maximizing rides and more about finding somewhere comfortable to feed, change or let the babies sleep.
That’s the biggest change I’d make to a normal Disneyland strategy: I wouldn’t measure a successful infant trip by the number of attractions completed.
I Wouldn’t Plan Around Perfect Naps
On paper, it’s tempting to build a perfect schedule around feeding and nap times. With three babies, that didn’t survive contact with Disneyland for very long.
Sometimes a stroller nap worked. Sometimes we needed a quieter break. Sometimes leaving the parks for a while was the better choice.
If you’re staying at a hotel within walking distance, a midday hotel break can be much more realistic than trying to keep an overtired baby inside the parks purely because you paid for the day.
That’s one reason I like the options in my guide to hotels within walking distance of Disneyland. Being able to get back to the room without a complicated transportation plan matters much more with a baby.
The Ride List Matters More Than Packing Every Possible Baby Item
I would still bring the obvious necessities: diapers, wipes, feeding supplies, extra clothes and whatever our babies normally needed during a full day away from home.
But after doing Disneyland with infants, I don’t think the secret is carrying an enormous list of special Disney baby gear.
Knowing which rides everybody can do, where the Baby Care Center is, whether the stroller fits Disney’s rules and how Rider Switch works made a bigger difference for us.
There are enough Any Height attractions that taking a baby to Disneyland doesn’t have to mean spending the entire day on a bench while everyone else has fun.
It’s simply a different Disneyland day.
