Campfires and toddlers

[MissPollysTrolleyed]

There's a lovely campsite near us with bell tents which tempt me as I'm six months pregnant and can't be doing with all the packing and unpacking that camping usually involves. The only thing is that they allow campfires. This is usually something that attracts me to a campsite but my DH is very nervous about our 2yo being anywhere near a campfire. Although we don't have to light ours, he's worried about other people's fires.

Is he being too cautious or am I being too cavalier?

Well, most people will only use theirs in the evening, when your ds will be in bed, and even if he was up, you shouldn't really let him run around other people's camps anyway!

It's not really any different to going to someone's house who has a gas fire say or a barbeque - a good opportunity to educate him maybe?

Well we went camping on sites with fires with toddlers from about 11 months old and never had any problems with this. They don't toddle away to another pitch without someone noticing anyway.

We recently took our two DSs (3.5 and 1.5) to a campsite with fires and we roasted marshmellows with them over ours. Our 1.5 is very curious and does not normally listen to 'no' but we told him the fire was "hot! ouch - hot!" and he understood not to touch it. I really think you'll be fine.

Thanks for your reassurance. Your experience echoes my thoughts. DS is at the age where we have to keep our eyes on him 100% of the time anyway as he will get into a pickle if he wanders off anywhere so it's not going to be any different to usual.

My DH said he will go if I really want to so I might exert some pressure now. I'm six months pregnant so my prettiest pleases tend to work more now than usually .

Just watch out the next morning when the residue fires are still hot

My little girl was just 2 at our last camping trip with fire. We warned her- and she didn't get anywhere near it to be honest- think the smoke and heat gives them a sort of warning. As derek said though- the residues are likely to be more of an issue than the actual fire (again...no prob at the campsite we were at cos it p**d it down all week :))

Agree with @derekthehamster - embers can be deceptively hot, whilst looking cold.

I've camped with kids of all ages and never seen a child run into a fire. Especially if you do the 'ouch, hot' thing. I've even let my child touch a candle flame when he was tiny so he could feel that flames are hot.

I'd be more worried about lakes, ponds and rivers.