To worry so much about safety of camping with young children that I'll probably never do it?!

[principalitygirl]

I'd love to take DS toddler on camping holidays, now and in the future, both 'take your own tent' style and Eurocamp style fixed tents. But I worry so much about safety - mainly being in a deep sleep and someone taking DS from tent...
DH thinks I'm totally over-worrying...
AIBU?

I was going to book a camping holiday for me and Dd, but this was my fear as well. Or, that she'd wake in the night and wander off. She loves zips

Now I've opted for a caravan, but even now I'm worried she'll let herself out. I'll be packing the travel stairgate as extra precaution

In the nicest possible way, yes you are over worrying. Whilst camping is my idea of hell on earth i'm told it is fun for those inclined that way. Nobody will take your son, worst case scenario is spiders in your hair and a tent full of farts

1000s go camping if that worried ypu could use padlocks on the zips and as for caravans just lock the door

You all sleep in the same chamber and you sleep nearest the exit so no-one can climb or out without clambering over you first(which will wake you up)! Not done it with a toddler but did it with a 4 year old without any problem.

A deep sleep? On a family camping holiday?

Seriously though, it is SO much fun. Do give it a try if you can.

I am also a bit paranoid but I dealt with this by getting a massive tent with the bedrooms side by side rather than separated by the living space. You can unzip the 'wall' between them to make one big room if nec. I also make sure the zippers are fairly high up and not temptingly at floor level. Also helps with insect-related paranoia.

I'd start off on a small campsite and see how you go. Be brave!

that never even crossed my mind, although mine were a little older (6) when we went and stayed on a campsite in Greece.

All you need to Do is take a tent peg, put it through the door zip pull and push it in the ground. No one can get in and you DC cannot escape. Easy.

yep, you are over-worrying. has this ever actually happened (and I exclude when it turns out to be the ex.p or some such) and, if it has, really, how often? I'm guessing to the extent that anybody actually knows, it has basically never really happened. And I'm a complete 'worse-case scenario- parent, and even I never thought of this! Obviously, I have now...

Have camped hundreds of times since DC were tiny. Never had any problems with them getting out at night. Just sleep closest to the zips.
No fears about people taking them but the badger in the awning was a bit scary!!!

I worry about this with my grandads caravan as you turn it to lock rather than use a key and ds3 can now undo it

Are sleeping compartments are full height so if I ensure that the zip is at the top then toddler dd can't undo it and get out, she also sleeps in the same bedroom as me but even so she'd scream the place down if someone disturbed her. It really isn't a worry, she was only 1 when she first camped and loved it.

Snuggle up with the littel ones, they keep you ever so warm.

Our sleeping compartments not are. Must proof read.

I slept with ds4 in a double sleeping bag. Mind you, that was for warmth rather than anything else!

When we went camping with our DDs when they were little, we slept in a compartment each with one them. Not particularly because of the fear of them being snatched (never crossed my mind) but because we wanted to be able to settle them quickly and quietly if they woke due to the lack of soundproofing that canvas provides.

When they were very little, we used to hammer windbreaks and made them overlap around the entrances to the tents to fashion a sort of baby gate. To open it you had to pull one of the poles out of the ground to open the 'gate'. We fastened them at the top with a tent elastic to be secure.

Didn't stop DD trying to just climb out under the skirt of the tent on more than one occasion though.

oh that's the least of your worries. put her between you job done.

however, the rain, putting the bastard thing up,the toilets, the dirt, the mud, the sheer unadulterated vileness of not feeling clean, the sounds of other people's bloody kids awake at 5am, the cooking, the washing up bowl and carrying it to the washing area, the vile vile vileness of cold showers and everything wet wet wet and smelly. putting the bastard thing down.

I swear I gave up the will to put on makeup!!!

as you can tell went once.

hotel, dinner, bubble bath and cold class of white girl followed by a snuggly warm bed.

Last summer I was on Brownie camp with DS1 2 1/2y and 15 wk old DS2. No problems! DS1 had a great time running around all day and was fast asleep all night. DS2 had one of his better weeks of sleep too!

I've got no qualms about taking them. I can't think of a case of a child being taken from a campsite with adults in the tent. The closest I can think of was about 14-15 years ago where it was a group of children in a garden, and adults were in the house.

Done camping with DD since she was a baby (she's 3 now) and have not had an issue at all.
First time she was in a moses basket between us, second time in her gro bag in our bed, last time in a travel cot in the 'room' next to us. The next time she can either bunk up with us or have her own space. All the zips go upwards so no way can she get out and we go camping with friends, putting all our tents in a circle. Nobody could get in or out without falling over guy ropes, lights, tables, kettles....

PLEASE do not padlock zips together! Dangerous if there was a fire.

We have been camping lots, never thought the DC were likely to be taken. I really think you should try going, have a great time!

Camping with a young child is excellent and brilliant fun. Worrying about child abduction is not reasonable. Worrying about your child having a potty accident on the tent fabric and the whole place smelling of poo forever is reasonable. Worrying about your child barely sleeping because the tent doesn't get dark till a late summer sunset and gets light and hot with the early summer sunrise is reasonable. But put these worries aside and go ahead.

This is partly why I have never done it too...I just don't think I would sleep a wink. You may be being irrational but you are not alone!

I know it's crazy but I feel exactly the same as the OP. Pre-DC we camped a lot but haven't since. My main paranoia is that someone will slit the fabric of the tent and take one of the children in the night without me knowing.
I just can't get over the worry even though I know it's out of proportion with any real risk.

We spend most of our summer camping. It's our own little destress after the long school year.

The only time I have ever felt remotely worried was at a small campsite in rural PA, where a man came over and shouted at me (very much in the face) that I was driving too fast in the campground. He came over ever so slightly unhinged and we were the only tent in a campsite of trailers, so I didn't sleep so well that night!

Camping can be ridiculously fantastic. The kids spend the whole time outdoors, they eat S'Mores, they cook sausages over the fire, while you cook baked beans over a stove and drink wine. You go to the local lobster shack (in the UK, fish and chip shop) and feel as if you're fine dining. You play hours and hours of stupid card games. It is brilliant.

I have very little time for the "I can't camp/need a big fluffy bed" Princesses. They're clearly not camping properly.

You are totally, totally overthinking this and worrying needlessly.

Iiwy, I wouldn't go camping because you won't enjoy it. The shared bathroom scenario can be challenging with young kids - not a worry but a pain.