Paris with a Toddler in Winter: Our Honest 5-Day Guide (Including the Disney RER Mistake We Made)

Paris with a toddler in winter. Even writing that sentence, I can feel the warmth of the bakery we walked to at 6am when our body clocks refused to cooperate, the grey light of a January morning over the Seine, and Max pointing at the Eiffel Tower with both arms like he was personally responsible for it being there.

We arrived from Brussels by train, navigated a transit strike that sent Uber prices into the stratosphere, got our Disney RER tickets wrong (more on that — it is important), explored the Louvre with a toddler in tow, rode the carousel near the Eiffel Tower, and spent five days falling completely in love with a city in ways that were both expected and unexpected.

This guide is the real version. The one I wish I had read first. Including the parts that went sideways and what we would do differently.

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Navigate to where you want to go:

• Why Paris in Winter Actually Works with a Toddler
• Getting There: The Train from Brussels
• Arriving in Paris: Why We Took an Uber from the Station
• Where We Stayed: Our 11th Arrondissement Airbnb
• Getting Around Paris with a Toddler (And the Strike Situation)
• A Critical Note on Paris Transport Tickets — Read This
• The Sunrise Bakery Run: Jet Lag’s Silver Lining
• The Paris Metro and Stroller Reality Check
• Day 1: The Louvre — Kids Tours, Free Entry & What to Know
• Day 2: Eiffel Tower, Carousel, Trocadero & the Champ de Mars Playground
• Day 3: Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame & A Perfect Family Café Lunch
• Day 4: Jardin des Tuileries & Wandering Paris on Foot
• Day 5: Disneyland Paris — And the RER Ticket Mistake We Made
• Leaving Paris: Orly Airport & TAP Airlines to Portugal
• Food in Paris with a Toddler
• Practical Tips for Families
• Final Thoughts

Why Paris in Winter Actually Works with a Toddler

Winter travel to Paris with a toddler is not the obvious choice — but after doing it, it is the only choice I want to make again. Here is why:

   

Fewer crowds everywhere. The Louvre, the Eiffel Tower area, Notre Dame, Disneyland Paris — all dramatically less crowded in winter than summer. With a toddler whose patience for queues is approximately zero minutes, this matters enormously.

Cooler weather means more comfortable walking. Pushing a stroller through Paris in August heat sounds genuinely miserable. In winter, we walked for hours in crisp air without anyone overheating or melting down from the temperature alone.

The city is magical. Paris in December and January has a particular quality of light — low, golden, soft — that makes everything look like a painting. Our sunrise bakery walks (more on those below) were some of the most beautiful moments I have experienced in any city, anywhere.

The honest trade-off: Yes, it is cold. Layer the toddler properly — thermals underneath, a proper coat, warm socks, and if you are there in January, a hat and gloves at all times. A rainproof cover and footmuff for your stroller is essential. But the cold is manageable, the beauty is real, and the crowds are gone. We would do it exactly the same way again.

Getting There: The Train from Brussels

We arrived in Paris from Brussels, where we had spent three days exploring with Max. The Thalys (now Eurostar) high-speed train between Brussels-Midi and Paris Gare du Nord takes approximately 1 hour 22 minutes — one of the shortest international city-to-city journeys in Europe, and one of the most pleasant.

Book your seats together in advance. Table seats are ideal for a toddler — four seats around a table gives everyone room to spread out snacks, toys, and the inevitable chaos of traveling with a small child. The train is smooth, fast, and the scenery through northern France is gentle and pretty.

You arrive at Paris Gare du Nord — one of Europe’s busiest train stations and genuinely overwhelming on first arrival, especially with luggage and a toddler. Stay calm, follow the signs for the exit, and do not attempt the metro on arrival. Read the next section.

Arriving in Paris: Why We Took an Uber from the Station

With luggage, a car seat, and a toddler, the absolute right call on arrival in Paris is an Uber or taxi. We did this and I recommend it without hesitation.

Here is why. Gare du Nord’s metro connections involve stairs, crowds, and navigating a complex underground system with bags and a stroller when you are tired from travel and still orienting yourself to a new city. It is simply not worth the stress when an Uber is affordable and deposits you directly at your accommodation door.

The car seat question: We traveled with our own car seat and brought it in the Uber from the station. This is the right move in Paris — many standard taxi and Uber vehicles will not have a car seat, and under French law, children must be in appropriate restraints. If you do not have your own, book an Uber with the family option that specifies a car seat, or arrange a private transfer in advance.

During normal circumstances, Uber is genuinely affordable and reliable in Paris. During our trip, a transit strike was in effect for part of our stay (more on this below), which pushed Uber prices up significantly. The station-to-accommodation journey was still worth it on arrival regardless of price — it was manageable. It was the subsequent strike-period Uber prices during our city days that became the real budget consideration.

Where We Stayed: Our 11th Arrondissement Airbnb

The decision to stay in an Airbnb rather than a hotel for a Paris toddler trip was one of the best calls we made, and I want to make the case for it clearly.

Our apartment was in the 11th arrondissement — further from the most iconic sights than a central Paris hotel would be, but right on a metro stop and surrounded by everything a family actually needs for daily life: multiple cafés, an excellent boulangerie within a two-minute walk, a grocery store, a pharmacy, and the kind of genuine neighbourhood energy that makes you feel like you are actually living in Paris rather than just visiting it.

The apartment itself had a one-bedroom, a living room, a full kitchen, a full bathroom, and — the detail that earned it five stars in our family’s estimation — its own indoor pool. For a winter trip with a toddler who needs somewhere to burn energy after a full day of Paris sightseeing, a private pool is extraordinary. We used it every evening. Max was in heaven. The adults were in heaven. It reset us completely for the next day.

   

The kitchen meant we could store grocery shop snacks and breakfasts, prepare Max’s favorite simple meals when needed, and avoid the very real Paris challenge of finding a restaurant that has high chairs and is willing to accommodate a toddler at dinner. More on that below — Paris restaurants and toddlers have a relationship that requires managing expectations.

The laundry machine in the apartment was a genuine quality-of-life feature on a trip this long. Toddler travel generates enormous amounts of dirty clothing. Being able to wash mid-trip meant we packed significantly lighter.

The 11th arrondissement honest assessment: It is not the 7th (Eiffel Tower walking distance) or the 1st (Louvre doorstep). You will use the metro or an Uber to reach the main sights. But it is a vibrant, safe, genuinely Parisian neighbourhood with excellent everyday conveniences and a much more local feel than tourist-central arrondissements. For a longer stay with a toddler, where you need a kitchen, space, and laundry, it delivers completely.

Getting Around Paris with a Toddler (And the Strike Situation)

Here is the honest getting-around picture, because it is more complicated in Paris than in any other city we covered in this series.

The metro: Paris’s metro is fast, frequent, and extensive — and almost completely inaccessible with a stroller due to the near-universal lack of elevators. Almost every station involves stairs, often multiple flights of them. We used the metro during our trip, but with a compact stroller we were prepared to fold and carry on the stairs when needed. With two adults, this is manageable. Alone with a toddler, it could be challenging.

The bus: This option was much more stroller friendly, and accessible in general (compared to the metro). We took this during strike days as well, but it was incredibly crowded that reason alone. The bus is still a wonderful, budget friendly option for getting around Paris.

Our Airbnb host’s advice during the strike: During a transit strike in Paris, the metro becomes almost impossibly crowded — to the point where getting on with a stroller and a toddler becomes genuinely unsafe. Our local host, advised us to avoid the metro entirely during the peak strike days and use other options. We followed this advice and were grateful for it.

Uber: Our primary mode of transport for much of the trip. Normally very affordable in Paris. During the strike, prices surged. Our host warned us about this, which helped us plan around it and manage costs. On strike days, we walked far more than planned. With a stroller-napping toddler and Paris’s beautiful streets, this turned out to be one of the unexpected gifts of the trip.

Walking: This became our primary strategy, and Paris is extraordinarily beautiful to walk. We covered more ground on foot than we anticipated and found the city reveals itself most generously at a walking pace. The stroller handled Paris’s main boulevards and parks perfectly well. The historic cobblestone streets around the Marais and Île de la Cité are bumpier — a carrier for those moments were sometimes easier.

The stroller nap walk: As in Brussels, we protected Max’s afternoon nap by keeping him moving in the stroller. Paris has extraordinary walking routes for this — along the Seine, through the Tuileries, around the Champ de Mars. The motion knocked him out reliably and gave us continuing exploration time while he slept.

Key rule for Paris stroller navigation: Use the Bonjour RATP app for metro and bus routes. Try to keep your Navigo Easy card loaded for when you do use public transport, and embrace Uber during the evenings when everyone is tired and the idea of carrying a stroller down metro stairs is unbearable.

A Critical Note on Paris Transport Tickets — Read This

Because of our Disney experience (covered in detail in the Day 5 section), I want to flag the ticket situation upfront.

Paris’s transport system moved entirely away from paper magnetic tickets in 2025-2026. The old paper Ticket t+ carnet no longer exists. Everything is now digital.

What you need: A Navigo Easy card (€2 for the card itself, reloadable) or a smartphone with the RATP app. Load it with individual Metro-Train-RER tickets (€2.55 per adult, €1.30 per child aged 4–9) or a day/multi-day pass. Children under 4 travel free.

For Disneyland Paris specifically: The RER A train to Marne-la-Vallée (Disney) is in Zone 5. You need a ticket that covers Zone 5 — a standard inner Paris ticket does NOT cover this journey. This is the exact mistake we made. The full details are in the Day 5 section, but load your card with the correct Zone 1–5 ticket before you set off for Disney. Not when you arrive at the Disney RER stop, like we did.

The Sunrise Bakery Run: Jet Lag’s Silver Lining

There is a section of every parent travel blog that glosses over jet lag and moves on. I want to pause here and give jet lag its own call out. Because with a toddler, jet lag is real, it is disorienting, and it produces situations like a small child who is completely awake and full of energy at 5:30am in a Paris apartment.

We leaned into it.

Our boulangerie was two minutes from the apartment, and it opened early. On the mornings when Max was unambiguously awake before the sun, one of us would put him in the carrier or the stroller and walk him to the bakery in the dark, quiet streets of the 11th arrondissement.

These became some of the most unexpectedly beautiful parts of the whole trip. Empty Paris streets in the hour the sun was coming up. A warm bakery smell drifting out as we approached. Croissants and pain au chocolat still warm from the oven. A small child who found the whole thing completely magical. The walk home in the slowly lightening Paris morning.

Our body clocks still being off was an unexpected gift on this adventure.

Practical note: The jet lag generally resolves by days 3–4 for most toddlers. The first two days are the hardest. Build slower mornings into your itinerary for those first days. Save the big attraction visits for the afternoons when everyone is more regulated, and lean into the sunrise bakery run. There are worse things in the world than fresh croissants at 6am in Paris.

The Paris Metro and Stroller Reality Check

I covered this briefly in the getting-around section but want to give it dedicated space because it genuinely shapes your experience.

Paris’s metro is one of the great transport systems of the world — and it is also genuinely, structurally difficult with a stroller. The majority of stations have no elevators. You will carry your stroller. There is no way around this.

What makes it manageable:

A compact, lightweight stroller like the Silver Cross Jet is the right tool. You can fold it under one arm, hold the toddler with the other. Then you can manage the stairs without becoming a hazard to yourself or other passengers. A large travel system or pram in Paris’s metro is a genuinely miserable experience for everyone involved.

Fold the stroller on the metro itself — not just at the stairs. Opening a stroller inside a carriage during busy periods is a hassle. You’ll be faced with stairs when you exit, but it’s also in the way of other travelers.

The RER lines are more stroller-friendly than the standard metro lines. The stations tend to be more modern with escalators and occasional elevators. If your destination is served by an RER line, prioritize it.

The honest summary: do not let the metro situation stop you going to Paris. Do let it inform your stroller choice, your route planning, and your willingness to occasionally fold, carry, and take the stairs. It is manageable. It just requires preparation and the right stroller.

Day 1: The Louvre — Kids Tours, Free Entry & What to Know

We chose to do the Louvre on Day 1 — when everyone is still fresh and the novelty of Paris is at its most acute — and it was the right call.

The Louvre with a toddler: what you need to know first

All visitors under 18 enter the Louvre for free. This does not mean you skip the reservation. You must still book a timed entry slot for every person in your party, including children and toddlers, even though their ticket costs zero. You can do this on the Louvre’s official website or through a reputable site like Viator and Get Your Guide well in advance. Slots sell out, particularly in the morning. We booked ours several weeks ahead.

Enter via the Pyramid, and when inside, turn left for the elevator access. This is important with a stroller — the Pyramid entrance has a dedicated lift (elevator) that takes you down to the main hall below. Once inside, the museum is actually quite manageable with a stroller in most of its major galleries.

The family tour option — this is what we recommend

The Louvre is enormous. Over 35,000 works of art across 15 kilometres of gallery space. Going in without a plan with a toddler will result in overwhelm within 45 minutes and a very specific kind of parental despair.

The answer: a kid-friendly guided tour. The Louvre offers its own official family tours, and there are also excellent private options through providers like Viator and Get Your Guide. These tours are specifically designed to keep children engaged — think scavenger hunts, interactive questions, can-you-find-the-hidden-dog games, and guides who know exactly which masterpieces make children’s eyes go wide and which ones will produce a toddler sitting down on the gallery floor in protest.

Private family tours allow you to cut short if needed without disrupting a group — which with a toddler is not a theoretical concern, it is a genuine planning requirement.

What actually worked with Max:

The Egyptian antiquities wing — the scale and strangeness of the mummies, the hieroglyphs, the enormous sarcophagi — held Max’s attention in a way we did not expect. Children have a very specific fascination with ancient Egypt that the Louvre feeds generously. The Greek and Roman sculptures also worked — big, dramatic, easy to respond to visually. The painting galleries were shorter visits.

The Mona Lisa room: genuinely disappointing for families because it is always extremely crowded and the painting is smaller than everyone imagines. It is worth a brief visit for the cultural moment, but do not build your Louvre day around it.

Timing: Allow 2–3 hours. Build a café break into the middle. The Louvre has a café inside (Café Richelieu on the first floor has beautiful vaulted ceilings and is a lovely stop). After the museum, the Tuileries Garden is right outside — a perfect decompression walk.

Day 2: Eiffel Tower, Carousel, Trocadero & the Champ de Mars Playground

Day 2 was the Eiffel Tower day — and the day Max became officially obsessed.

We approached from the Trocadero side first, which gives you the most famous view of the tower across the fountains and gardens. On a winter morning, with the tower lit against a pale sky and the plaza largely quiet, it is one of those views that stops you mid-step. Max pointed at the tower for a long moment and then said something emphatic in toddler language that I choose to interpret as “I understand now why everyone talks about this.”

The Trocadero viewpoint is free, beautiful, and perfect for photos. In winter you can stand in it comfortably. In summer, it is a scrum. The difference is significant.

The Eiffel Tower itself: We did not go up. With a toddler, the queues for the lift (even with advance tickets) and the exposed heights are a significant consideration. The tower stroller parking note from other family travel bloggers is real — you lock your stroller at the base and carry everything else. With a toddler who may or may not want to be carried for the full tower visit, this is a calculation worth making in advance. We chose to enjoy it from the outside and from the Trocadero, and it was entirely satisfying.

The carousel near the Eiffel Tower: This was one of Max’s absolute highlights of the entire Paris trip — possibly the entire year. There is a traditional carousel (carrousel) right near the base of the Eiffel Tower, beautifully decorated with Parisian scene panels, playing French nursery music as it turns. Max rode it twice. And then again. It is inexpensive, takes about a minute, and produces a quality of toddler joy that is really something to witness. Do not skip this.

The Champ de Mars playground: Directly behind the Eiffel Tower, on the long green lawn that stretches away from it, there is a playground that was a gift to our trip. After the tower, the Trocadero, and the carousel, we walked to the playground and let Max run absolutely freely for 45 minutes while we sat on a bench and had coffees from a nearby kiosk. The Eiffel Tower loomed at one end of the lawn the entire time. Our child was in a playground with the Eiffel Tower as his backdrop. These are the moments that make international travel with a toddler make complete sense.

Day 3: Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame & A Perfect Family Café Lunch

Arc de Triomphe

The Arc de Triomphe is one of those Paris monuments that makes a massive impression even without going up — simply standing at the base of it, looking up at the intricate reliefs, is a genuine experience. We admired it from the Champs-Élysées side and from the surrounding roundabout viewpoint rather than climbing — the 284 steps are manageable but with a toddler who may or may not agree to be carried, it is a commitment.

Entry is €16 per adult. Children under 18 are free. If you do want to go up, the views over the twelve radiating avenues of Paris are extraordinary and very different from the Eiffel Tower perspective.

Practical note: To get to the central island where the Arc stands, you cannot jaywalk the roundabout — there are underground pedestrian passages from either side of the Champs-Élysées. Follow the signs; it is straightforward but not obvious on first approach.

Notre Dame

We made our way to Notre Dame and stood in the square in front of the cathedral watching the ongoing restoration work. The cathedral reopened to visitors in December 2024 after the devastating 2019 fire, which means depending on exactly when you visit, the experience varies. During our winter trip, we were able to see the exterior and observe the restoration scaffolding that remained in place — the sight of a crew actively rebuilding one of the world’s great medieval cathedrals is genuinely fascinating, and we found ourselves explaining to Max in simplified terms what had happened and what was being fixed.

Check the official Notre Dame website before your visit for the current status of interior access, as restoration work continues in phases through the coming years.

The area around Notre Dame — Île de la Cité, the Seine riverbanks, the flower market — is beautiful to walk regardless of cathedral access. The Seine views here are some of Paris’s best.

Family Café Lunch

Between Notre Dame and our afternoon, we found an adorable family-friendly café for lunch that became one of those happy accidents every Paris trip needs. Small, warm, with a blackboard menu, paper tablecloths, and a complete absence of any energy that made us feel like our toddler was an inconvenience.

This is the Paris café experience to seek out specifically. Not the grand brasseries, not the tourist-adjacent restaurants near major monuments — those environments often do not welcome toddlers warmly and high chairs are rare. The neighbourhood café, the kind with three tables outside and six inside, run by people who clearly genuinely enjoy being around all humans including small ones — find that, and lunch in Paris with a toddler becomes one of the best parts of the day.

Finding it: Ask your Airbnb host for a neighbourhood recommendation. In our experience, local hosts know exactly which cafés will be genuinely welcoming to a toddler and which to avoid. Our host’s recommendation was perfect.

High chair reality check: High chairs are uncommon in many Paris restaurants. Call ahead for any specific restaurant you are set on visiting, ask explicitly if they have a high chair, and if they do not, be prepared for lap dining, using your compact travel stroller or bringing your own portable booster. Tip: There are family friendly restaurants like Hippopotamus and Les Fils à Maman that have dedicated high chairs.

Day 4: Jardin des Tuileries & Wandering Paris on Foot

Day 4 was deliberately slower. After three days of iconic monuments and museums, we needed a Paris day that was just about being in the city — and the Jardin des Tuileries delivered completely.

The Tuileries is the formal garden that stretches between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde, along the right bank of the Seine. In winter it is beautiful and unhurried — the geometric paths, the bare-branched trees, the fountain basins, and the garden sculptures creating a very particular kind of elegant, quiet Paris atmosphere.

For toddlers, the Tuileries has several things to love:

The carousel in the Tuileries: There is another traditional Paris carousel here, similar to the one near the Eiffel Tower. We rode it with Max who, by this point in the trip, had developed a sophisticated approach to carousels that involved very careful horse selection and a serious demeanour throughout.

The toy sailboat pond: A Paris classic — small wooden sailboats available to rent for €5 for around 30 minutes, pushed around a circular fountain basin with long sticks. Older toddlers are obsessed with this. In winter it is quieter than summer, meaning more time at the pond without negotiating for space.

The playground: The Tuileries has a paid playground (approximately €3 per child) in the garden that is well-equipped and popular with Parisian families. In winter, with fewer visitors, it is a genuinely lovely space.

After the Tuileries, we walked. Just walked. Along the Seine, into the Marais for a browse through its beautiful neighbourhood streets, past Place des Vosges (Paris’s oldest planned square, surrounded by red brick arcades, and worth a walk-through if you are in the neighbourhood), and eventually back toward our arrondissement as the light faded and everyone was ready for the apartment, the pool, and dinner from the local boulangerie.

Some of the best travel days are the ones where you follow your feet and arrive nowhere in particular.

Day 5: Disneyland Paris — And the RER Ticket Mistake We Made

Day 5 was our Disneyland Paris day — and it contained the most instructive transport mistake of our entire multi-country trip. I am telling you this story in full because I genuinely want to save you from it.

The RER Ticket Situation: What We Got Wrong

Disneyland Paris is approximately 40 minutes from central Paris on the RER A train to Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy station. The train stops right at the resort gates. It is convenient and affordable — and the ticket purchase requires specific attention that we did not give it.

Here is the thing about Paris’s transport zones: the city is divided into fare zones 1–5. Central Paris is Zone 1. Disneyland Paris is in Zone 5. A standard metro or inner Paris RER ticket covers Zone 1 journeys. It does not cover Zone 5. They are different tickets.

We loaded our Navigo Easy cards with standard Metro-Train-RER tickets — the kind that cover inner Paris — and set off for Disney. On arrival at the Disney RER stop, we discovered our tickets did not cover the full Zone 5 journey.

A very kind and patient station attendant let us through, explained our mistake clearly and without any unkindness, and we were on our way. But we were lucky. A fine for traveling on an incorrect ticket in Paris is approximately €40 per person payable on the spot. That would have been a painful start to a Disney day.

What you need to get to Disneyland Paris correctly:

The correct ticket is a Metro-Train-RER ticket that covers all five zones (Zones 1–5). As of 2026 this costs €2.55 per adult and €1.30 per child aged 4–9 per journey. Children under 4 travel free. Load these onto your Navigo Easy card at any metro or RER station ticket machine before you leave for Disney — not on arrival.

Alternatively, the Paris Visite pass (1–5 days, all zones) covers everything including Disneyland and both airports. At €30.60 for a one-day full zone pass, it is not the cheapest option for a single Disney day, but it is the simplest — load it once, tap everywhere, no zone anxiety.

The takeaway: Do your ticket research before you leave for Disney, not on the platform. Zone 5 requires a different, slightly more expensive ticket than your inner-Paris journeys. It is not complicated once you know — it just needs to be done correctly.

Disneyland Paris — The Visit Itself

As of March 29, 2026, Disneyland Paris has two parks: Disneyland Park (the classic, with Sleeping Beauty Castle) and the newly renamed Disney Adventure World (formerly Walt Disney Studios Park, now rebranded with the addition of World of Frozen and other new areas).

For families with toddlers, Disneyland Park is the right focus. It has the most iconic fairytale atmosphere, the most toddler-appropriate rides, the best character meet-and-greets, and the castle experience that makes children’s eyes go enormous.

Buy your tickets in advance online. Tickets are not sold at the park entrance. Book through the official Disneyland Paris website or through a reputable site like Get Your Guide.

Toddler-specific highlights in Disneyland Park:

• It’s a Small World — perfect for all ages, gentle, visually extraordinary
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant — Max’s favourite
• Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups — the spinning intensity is a toddler judgement call, but most love it
• Casey Jr. Circus Train — a lovely, easy ride through fairytale scenery
• The castle itself, with its fairytale pink towers and Sleeping Beauty frescoes inside, is genuinely one of the most beautiful Disney castle experiences in the world

The park in winter: December and January bring Disneyland Paris’s Christmas season — lights, decorations, character costumes in festive outfits, and a genuinely magical atmosphere. The crowds are lighter than summer, queues are shorter, and the festive ambiance is something special.

We ended our Paris trip in Disneyland, which felt exactly right. The simple, joyful, uncomplicated happiness of a Disney park was the perfect closing note for our Paris adventure.

Leaving Paris: Orly Airport & TAP Airlines to Portugal

We were continuing our trip to Portugal, flying from Paris Orly Airport with TAP Airlines — and the departure was one of the smoothest airport experiences of the entire multi-country trip.

Orly is significantly smaller and calmer than Charles de Gaulle. With a toddler, this is meaningful. The queues are shorter, the distances are smaller, security is more manageable, and the overall atmosphere is less overwhelming than CDG’s sprawling terminals.

Getting to Orly from central Paris: Metro Line 14 connects directly to Paris-Orly Airport from Châtelet station in approximately 25 minutes. This is now the recommended route following the discontinuation of the Orlybus in early 2025. With luggage and a stroller, we took an Uber to Orly on departure day — the straightforward, stress-free choice when you have bags to manage.

TAP Airlines: A positive experience from start to finish. TAP is Portugal’s national airline and their family-friendliness is genuine — families with young children board in priority groups, the cabin crew were warm with Max, and the flight to Lisbon felt easy and well-managed. If you are building a multi-city Europe trip that includes Portugal, TAP is a very solid choice for the Paris-Lisbon leg.

Food in Paris with a Toddler

Paris food with a toddler requires a realistic strategy. Here is what worked for us:

Boulangerie breakfasts — absolutely the move. Every morning, the bakery. Croissants, pain au chocolat, a tartine (baguette with butter and jam) for Max, an espresso for us. Affordable, fast, universally delicious, and no high chair required. This was our daily anchor and one of the best daily rituals we have built into any trip anywhere.

Picnics from the grocery store: The Monoprix and Carrefour City stores throughout Paris are brilliant for family picnics. A baguette, some cheese, charcuterie, fruit, a small pot of yogurt for the toddler. Take it to the Tuileries or the Champ de Mars. This is genuinely how Parisians eat lunch and it is completely wonderful for families.

High chair reality: As noted above, high chairs are not standard in Paris restaurants in the way they are in the US, Tokyo, or Portugal. Before you commit to a sit-down restaurant dinner, check whether they have one. Your Airbnb host is your best source of honest intel on which local restaurants are genuinely family-welcoming.

The restaurant timing challenge: French dinner service typically starts at 7:30–8pm, which clashes directly with most toddlers’ bedtimes. For dinner, either go early (some restaurants open at 7pm for an early sitting), eat informally at a café or brasserie where timing is more flexible, or embrace the kitchen in your apartment for the nights when the timing simply does not work.

What Max ate in Paris: Bread, butter, croissants, crêpes, jambon-beurre (ham and butter baguette, a French lunchtime staple that toddlers universally love), yogurt, fresh fruit from the market, and french fries in quantities that shall not be disclosed publicly. Paris fed him very well.

Crêpes: The street crêpe stands are perfect for toddlers — simple, fast, customizable (Nutella and banana is the standard toddler order), and eaten on the move. No high chair required. Keep baby wipes handy for the inevitable Nutella situation.

Practical Tips for Families

Book the Louvre well in advance. Timed entry slots sell out. Book on the official Louvre website, add free children’s tickets for every child even at €0, and have your QR codes ready on your phone. Adult tickets are €32 as of January 2026. Another option is through Viator or Get Your Guide for family oriented tours.

The correct Disney RER ticket is Zone 1–5. This is worth a second mention because it is the most important practical tip in this entire guide. Load your Navigo Easy card with the correct Zone 5-covering ticket before you leave for Disney. It is €2.55 per adult, €1.30 per child aged 4–9.

Bring your own portable booster seat or high chair. If high chairs are non-negotiable for your toddler’s mealtimes, a lightweight clip-on or portable booster that fits in your day bag is worth packing. It turns any café into a viable family restaurant.

Keep an anti-theft bag on you near tourist areas. Paris has the same pickpocket risk near major sights as Brussels. Crossbody, slash-proof, zippers locked. Especially at the Louvre entrance and around the Eiffel Tower where crowds concentrate.

Paper tickets are gone. As of mid-2026, magnetic paper tickets no longer work on Paris transport. Get a Navigo Easy card (€2) at any station on arrival and load it as you go. Download the RATP Bonjour app for real-time route planning and disruption alerts — especially useful during strikes.

Know before you go about strikes. French transit strikes are announced in advance. Before your trip and during it, check the RATP app and news for any planned strike days. If a strike coincides with your Disney day, consider rescheduling it. The Disney RER is not immune and the journey becomes significantly harder. Our Airbnb host was an invaluable source of real-time local information during the strike period.

Uber in Paris: Reliable and genuinely useful for tired evenings and airport journeys. Prices surge during strikes and during peak times. The Airbnb with a kitchen meant we could stay in on the highest-surge evenings without feeling like we were missing out.

Build in genuinely slow days. Paris rewards slow travel. Some of our best Paris moments happened when we stopped trying to see things and just walked. The 11th arrondissement has wonderful streets for exactly this. Let yourselves wander.

Final Thoughts

Paris with a toddler in winter is absolutely worth it. The metro stairs are real. The high chair situation requires more thought than we usually give way to. But the early wake ups lead to sunrise bakery walks in the dark Paris streets. Those created core memories for our family.

Max on the carousel near the Eiffel Tower, absolutely made his day. The Louvre scavenger hunt that kept him engaged for two full hours. The Champ de Mars playground with a tower in the background. The stroller nap walks along the Seine while the city moved quietly past us.

Paris gives back in proportion to what you are willing to give it. Go with realistic expectations about the logistics, the right stroller, the correct RER ticket, and the willingness to just go with the flow will turn you into a family that eats croissants at dawn.

It is worth every cobblestone.

We left for Portugal knowing this would not be our last Paris trip. Max will get to see it again when he can tell us about what he remembers. That is the best possible ending to any family trip.

Questions about Paris with a toddler? Drop them in the comments — we are always happy to help families prepare for this one, because getting it right makes all the difference.

And if you are building the same multi-country winter trip we did, check out our How to Spend a Week in London post, Brussels with a Toddler Guide, our Lisbon with Kids Guide, and our Portugal by Train with Kids Guide for the full picture!

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