I waited until my daughter was 10 before I took her to WDW. Maybe I’m a grouch, but it’s such a big investment of time & money that I didn’t want to “waste” it on a small child or, especially, a baby. IMHO it’s just too much for them and stressful on you.
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Yup, Being a parent is like folding a fitted sheet. No one really know how. 
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The Martha Stewart method of folding a fitted sheet changed my life. But I agree.
We’ve done lots of international travel with our kids since they were babies/toddlers but have waited on theme parks because crowds were not their favourite thing. I found little babies easier to travel with than toddlers but I like that there’s much less gear to lug/wheel around with older kids.
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I had measles when I was 10. Was in bed for three weeks. It is definetely not a mild disease.
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love that analogy. …stealing it
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Our DD was just under 3 months old the first time we took her to WDW. It was super easy, but she was a very easygoing baby who slept through pretty much from the start. We did go to New York straight after, and that was a real wakeup call in terms of how incredibly well WDW is geared up for families. NY was the polar opposite - I have (not so fond) memories of changing diapers on the floor of a Starbucks among other things… 
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I agree that each parent needs to make their own decision, BUT this has always been an issue for me. Take them when they can remember the trip.
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Instructions were unclear. My kids are now folded up in the linen closet.
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I personally haven’t worried about whether or not they can remember it. It’s also about me making memories of seeing them with giant smiles and laughter, etc. Seeing my toddler get so excited for Pooh or Minnie has made some awesome times.
And in that vein - I throw them birthday parties they won’t remember and take them to church before they are old enough to remember and read them books they’ll never remember.
Also, I never know when our ability to travel will be altered. I know too many families who have sustained debilitating tragedies that made it impossible for mom or dad to travel anymore.
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This is our reasoning for our planned November 2020 trip. We’ll have a 4 year old and a 1 year old and we’re hoping to take both sets of our parents while they are still in good health. I think 1 year is the youngest we’d want to take. We took our 2 year old in January and we loved it. We wanted to go on a family vacation and DH and I will have wonderful memories of the trip. DS2 talks about the trip all the time even though I know most of his memories are from the photo book I made or supplemented by us talking about the trip with him.
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But why? They’re not the only ones we’re going for. I don’t know if my son, who was almost 3, will remember the trip, but I’ll never forget his face when he hugged Baymax or saw fireworks for the first time.
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I definitely see the value in that and plan to take them again when they’re older. But right now, I see it as a choice of take a family vacation to WDW and have a blast or don’t take a family vacation at all. We live in a beach town, so a week-long beach vacation doesn’t appeal to us and those seem like the two best toddler friendly vacation choices.
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If you have to choose between taking a child at 5 or taking them at 6 and not being able to go again for 5-10 years, it might be worth waiting till 6. But personally I’ve been lucky to have the means to go to DLR almost annually and WDW about once every 3-4 years with children from age 3 months - 7 years and each time has its own unique joys (and pains, of course). Overall, it has been worth it each time and I wouldn’t have foregone the trip just because of the stress of the kids.
That sentiment was further reinforced last week at DCA when I saw my 2-year-old daughter’s pure elation while riding The Little Mermaid (IG link here). It was priceless. Just as valuable as DS7’s first ride on Splash Mountain or DD5’s terror on GotG (oh wait, whoops never mind, that one wasn’t fun. 
)
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That’s so sweet!!!
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This! My DS was 13 months on our trip last year. He won’t remember any of it. But, there were many, many priceless moments watching him on rides and at character meet/greets.
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Every parent and every child is different. I did not want to take my kids until my youngest had his MMR vaccine at 12 months (with a couple weeks for them to kick in). So we planned our first (with kids) WDW visit for when he was 13 months old.
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You were just being nice by use of the word “probably” 
Exposure is definitely higher at WDW than every day life.
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That is a very winning video!
We took DS11 to Thailand on a trip with my parents when he was 2 and he doesn’t remember much or any of it but we do, and he loves the family stories about the trip. It was an amazing trip.
Communicable disease exposure wasn’t the main reason we’ve waited so long to go, but it was a factor in the early years. Mostly it was that my kids tended to find crowds overwhelming and I think a trip when they were younger would have been more stressful than fun for them. The other trips we’ve taken had crowds in some places but not in the same sustained way. My first trip to Disneyland was at almost-12 and it was still magical. I hope our upcoming trip is at least as magical for DS11 and DS7.
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You are probably correct 
