TL;DR – it was great, go for it!
I spent a lot of time worrying that Japan with a toddler and food allergies was going to be a nightmare, but we've just got back from a 3 week stay and it was fantastic – just a bit different to travelling as a solo/couple.
The Japanese people were so helpful (trying to help with encouraging my son to walk or if he was having a tantrum from being overstimulated), or just generally engaging with him which was lovely.
Reduce your expectations of what you can do, we'd try to plan one thing in the morning, one thing in the afternoon, even if that was only going to visit a shrine then on to dinner. Occasionaly we were in the hotel for bedtime at 7, occasionally we could be out until 9ish depending on naps and we just kept it flexible to my sons pace/needs and didn't feel guilty if we needed a 'day off' and just went to a playground or for slow walks (as that's still exepriencing the country!).
We took a mix of taxis, underground, Shinkansen and had a couple of private transfers to/from hotels. We used a baby carrier (a ring sling was our fave as it was thin to take with us and my son was constantly up and down). He could sleep in it if needed too, but we don't use a pram at home – but reckon you'd be fine with a light pram, loads of escalators/lifts. We took too many clothes with us, and also had to buy a whole suitcase to come home!
I had one woman tell me why had I bothered bringing my son as 'he wouldn't remember it', but we'll always have the memories and he'll always see photos of it, and I think the experience new foods, locations, cultures and opportunities to pick up stones has absolutely been a positive experience for him! By day 3 was saying 'riato' as his way of saying 'agriato gozaimasu' and he loves waving to everyone and everything now!
Itinerary
*Disneyland x 2 days
*Disneysea x 2 days (including getting soft opening for Fantasy Springs)
* 4 days Tokyo
* 2 days Osaka
* 5 days Kyoto
* 2 days Hakone
* 1 night Tokyo pre-flight.
Best places for toddlers
* Tokyo Fire Museum
* Tokyo Police Museum
* Kyoto railway museum (this was actually great for all of us, and not something I'd have ever considered before!)
* gardens/castles/some shrines as they normally have large grounds to let the toddlers stretch their legs.
* Disney obviously
* Universal was fine, but there wasn't as much as Disney for him to do, but the rides were better for us. Lots of characters around.
*train rides, underground, seeing buses, going on the monorail…!
*teamlabs. We went to borderless and it blew his mind!
Food & Allergies
My son has dairy (severe) and soy (mild but not ideal) allergies, which I also follow, which made it initially quite tricky when looking at food.
I recommend searching for the kanji of your allergies and keeping it close to hand for checking packaging and then just having google translate/lens ready to go. There is generally good information and awareness about the top 8 Japanese allergens, but less awareness on the top 22 and some street vendors etc wouldn't risk serving us due to potential cross contamination, but restaurants were fine in general.
- conbini salads and noodles were great, as well as bento boxes etc. labelling could be tricky with soy as it often wasn't clear if it was only in the sauce or in the full meal, but often the packaging was clear and using a google search of typical recipes it was fairly easy to gauge if soy was anywhere.
- for dairy and soy allergy, our go to food were salads without dressing, cold udon or soba, tempura (in some locations), sushi, sushi/sushi balls without sauce from conbini, fruit, jellied sweets, some mochi was fine, teppanyaki (salt not sauce), fries (our view was it's not ideal but if that's the best option for the toddler it's only a short period of time!), smokehouse restaurants (campo o ouest in Kyoto was delicious). We only found ready salted crisps to be dairy and soy free. Ed
- book restaurants in advance and book the early sitting. You can normally flag what allergies you have in advance. We found more 'local' type restaurants easier to manage with allergies.
- we had a great experience with Restaurant Sodoh in Kyoto, they actually attached stickers to our plates, and we were able to have a tasting menu, whilst our son had pork and rice, and it was delicious. We sat in main dining room but at a 5:30 sitting.
- some restaurants (I.e. Imahan and traditional tappanyaki restaurants) have private rooms that you can book either for free or for up to ¥3000 – this is great if you have a fidgety/noisy toddler, as means you can get decent meals but without making too much of a fuss
- Disney and universal were pretty poor on available foods without dairy and soy, and their buffets didn't have any allergy labelling (all our hotels buffet did have allergy labelling, at least for top 8). But on the Disney website, they have an allergen filter which is super useful.
- we stayed at a ryokan which served food in a dining room attached to our room, so we had a private dinner experience. This worked super well as we had a dinner as a couple whilst my son had an early night! If you stay at a ryokan, take snacks and conbini foods for your toddler or ask them to make rice and grilled meat/veg as it's basically a tasting menu.
Essentially it was great, and I hope this helps someone, as I was a bit nervous after reading comments and posts here!
by flitzyfitz