Small children and wood stoves

[agz124]

This will be my second winter as a woodburner and we have a 15 month old who is beginning to walk/run/fall/walk. Ever since birth we have said, "no" whenever he approached the wood stove but last winter he was not mobile. My wife's concern is now that he is walking he might walk/fall into it as it is in the center of our living room. I, on the other hand, think we can teach him to not touch mainly because the human body feels the extreme even when you are 5 feet away. It is not like cooking in the kitchen and a kids touches the burner, the woodstove throws serious heat from all sides. Either way, my wife wants me to build some kind of gate which I will have to fasten to my hardwood floor which I am not crazy about. Does anyone have any insight on kids and stoves or what to build around the stove?

Thanks

 

[burntime]

I had the same situation, the kids are curious. One morning the stove was cool, still some embers and blowing heat but not loaded up for the day. I watched my little guy walk up to it and look me in the eye, usually I ran and say NO, I told him he will be sorry... Of course he touched it, screamed bloody murder. That cured it and did not leave a mark. Now shortly after he said uh-oh and points to the stove. It is always a concern but you hope if a burn happens it is minor or more of a scare than something serious. My 3 year old stays clean and did a similiar thing, when he insisted on going by it I held him infront of it so the blower blew warm air in his eyes, for him that was enough to cure the curiosity. Good luck, I just hope your teachings are a non-event. Of course the dog and cat are always by the heat source so it is just one more lure to them

 

[Mmaul]

Same thing here 18 month old always told her NO but while I was loading it she touch the open door and screamed but never did it again. I do my best to keep them safe from it but its one of those things they dont really know till the feel the consiquence.

 

[Tfin]

My now 18 month old was walking all last burning season. Our stove is in the corner of the living room so we put two of our extra wooden kitchen chairs in front of it on their sides to block it off. I was hoping to not have to baracade the stove this season, but I feel I'm going to have to.

Right now anytime he even gets close to the hearth pad we say NO! and if he doesn't move, we move him. I think he'd be fine if we were there watching him, but I'm just not willing to take the chance any time we're out of the living room. Its just to dangerous.

For this season I'm hoping to get/buy something a little more asthetically pleasing. I've seen bifolding gates that you can add as many sections to as you need (even to make a complete circle if necessary) in some pet cataloges (Dr's Foster & Smith). This may work for your situation as well.

 

[begreen]

Our neighbors went through the same angst and were only burning at night after the kids went to sleep. Then, a couple years ago they got the new stove and we had a week long power outage. They had to burn 24/7. To their surprise, even though they had very active young (about 2 and 5 at the time) boys, the kids gave the stove wide berth while running around the house. Teach them with Owee! Hot!, they seem to get the message.

But if you still are concerned they make child protective gates that can surround the stove or insert.

 

[kjklosek]

I have heated with wood for the past 2 years and my daughter will be 3 on Friday.

Haven't had any problems so far. I just tell her it is too hot. She touched the door one time while I was reloading and now knows I wasn't lying.

Now she sets her dolls in front of the stove to watch the "Fireplace" and instructs them not to touch it.

You can buy gates to put around the stove. The ones they sell around me are about $200. They are freestanding.

You will probably be OK. Even kids that are as small as yours are pretty smart. If your hearth is big like mine then you have a good set up for teaching him to stay away from the stove.

Besides if he touches it once, it will be the last time.

J.P.

 

[Poult]

My parents just told me over and over that the stove was "hot". I probably did touch it, but don't remember. Anyway, the first word I ever spoke was "hot".

Poult

 

[cighon]

i got an insert this past Feb, and with a 2yr old running around i installed a hearth fence. works great. and also teach them that is hot, and can hurt.

i have the fence removed during the summer.

although now he is 3 and probably can open the gate.

 

[mayhem]

I think gates are a bad idea personally...kids are naturally curious and amazingly clever when it comes to getting at what they want. My wife and I ahd this discussion at length and we finally opted to leave the fence down and the stove exposed and let nature teach our daughter to not touch the hot stove. She had plenty of opportunity last year and never once did she get burned or even singed...she can feel the heat when she gets close enough and that seems to be all the information she needs to not want to touch the sotve. Now that its cool of course she's constantly touching it so the first day or two of fire in the late fall will be interesting. No matter how much you say no, a curious kid WILL touch that stove...put up a gate and they'll learn to lean on it because its protecting them and sooner or later they'll wind up tipping it over and falling on the stove wiht their hwole body and not just a finger...a worst case scenario to be sure, but I can see my daughter doing it...thats why we don't use the fence.

My advice is to not try to keep your kids from learning a valuable lesson first hand and make sure you keep a burn kit handy if, heaven forbid, you do need it.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

"Now she sets her dolls in front of the stove to watch the “Fireplace” and instructs them not to touch it. "

OK- that's really friggin cute

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Most dogs are as smart as something like a 2 yr old human and they don't touch it. One of my dogs basically worships our insert, but stays a respectful distance away.

 

[gpcollen1]

I think we have begun to treat our kids in an incredibly harmful way - like they cannot do anything or learn anything for themselves until the day we let them out the door and off to college. I think that is one way to ruin an otherwise perfectly good human being.

I try and TEACH my kids everything [girls 1.5, 5 and 8 yrs old]. My youngest was just almost 1 last year when burning season started and I managed to keep her burn free without a gate. I understand that the gate is a good safety measure but it is definitely no substitute for teaching them. And then, as others have noted, they have to experience HOT before they really know what it means. Only you can decide, gate or no gate...

 

[profitone]

If you want to teach your kids about the value of "HOT" have em touch a lightbulb-(not recommended)- my son grabbed one at age one and now at age 6 seems to have only one memory left of age 1...

 

[Noah]

i got an insert this past Feb, and with a 2yr old running around i installed a hearth fence. works great. and also teach them that is hot, and can hurt.

i have the fence removed during the summer.

although now he is 3 and probably can open the gate.

I have the same fence but now it doesn't fit very well since I build a weird shaped hearth. When it's up my daughter completely ignores the existence of the stove and doesn't even come near the gate. When it's down she only wants to play with the stove when I'm playing with it. I think I'm just going to keep an eye on her and see what she does, she's pretty smart so I think she'll figure it out.

 

[Patapsco Mike]

I was in the same boat, and put up a temporary gate. Kids are smart enough not to touch it on purpose, but I worried about a trip over a ball, the dog bumping them into it, or maybe backing into it. They could easily get through the gate if they wanted to, but it's not intentional touching I worried about- it's the accidents. Getting burned sucks, and putting up a temporary gate is cheap, easy and effective.

 

[Tfin]

Both my wife and I try to teach our son as much as we can, whenever we can. But I'm sorry, at one year old (this coming Jan), I'm not going to take the chance on my son touching a 500-600 deg surface while I'm not in the stove room just to teach him a lesson. I mean give me a break, those kind of temps would scar him for life. That's not the way he needs to learn.

I realize you can't protect them from everything and they are going to get hurt from time to time, but a touching a roaring stove isn't the way to do it. We WILL have some sort of barcade at the very least while we're not in the room. If we're sitting there watching TV, I can see us removing it and working at teaching him to stay away from it at that point.

 

[glacialhills]

I totally agree ctwoodburner, its getting to the point where I am expecting any time now that we will be required to have our children wear safety helmets 24/7 until they are 18. As Dory in Finding Nemo so succinctly said "that's an odd thing to promise... never letting anything happen to him. I mean If you never let anything happen to him then nothing will EVER happen to him". That wouldn't be very fun for little Harpo". Love that movie Ellan D is just great.

 

[savageactor7]

Kids will always be curious about forbidden fruit...

...we raised 4 kids by our wood stove and changed their diapers right in front of it. They learn what "HOT' is real quick..my daughter was the only one to receive a minor burn cause she ran behind the stove...which was always a big NO NO. I put ice on it and all was well...and the other 3 kids quickly fell in step.

Children are not stupid...while they may grab a cool handel to a pot on the stove to a disastrous effect ...they'll respect a hot stove cause it radiates. You can make a fun thing out of it by letting a child carry a lite split while your loading the stove...the radiant heat once the door is opened will quickly school them respect the stove...

...damn, hot is hot, that's a human trait we're all born with, my advice is not to make your child afraid or too curious about the stove. Just expose them to it a little bit at a time.

 

[gpcollen1]

Both my wife and I try to teach our son as much as we can, whenever we can. But I'm sorry, at one year old (this coming Jan), I'm not going to take the chance on my son touching a 500-600 deg surface while I'm not in the stove room just to teach him a lesson. I mean give me a break, those kind of temps would scar him for life. That's not the way he needs to learn.

I realize you can't protect them from everything and they are going to get hurt from time to time, but a touching a roaring stove isn't the way to do it. We WILL have some sort of barcade at the very least while we're not in the room. If we're sitting there watching TV, I can see us removing it and working at teaching him to stay away from it at that point.

I agree to an extent but philosophically, I just cannot get to a point of installing a gate. I am not opposed to safety at all and I do get torn over which way to go on some of these decisions.

 

[billb3]

I'd be much more concerned with someone else's kid touching it and getting burned and homeowner's tested.
If a kid touches it a second time that's a sure sign of a short bus future.

Dogs and cats usually only lose whiskers.

 

[oilstinks]

We can be told all we want but we will never understand until we get burned or cut with the knife we are told not to play with or using incorrectly(my 2 year old dont get knifes-had to edit that before DSS got called on me) the dog will bite if you pull its tail and then it bites, you all no what i mean. I worry too that my 2 year old will get burned but i know in the end that is the only way she will ever really learn what hot is. Dont get me wrong i will do every thing possible to keep that from happening to her and i know that might sound barbaric but thats is really the truth

 

[ms440]

See my avatar. The gate gives me piece of mind when my two young boys come running around the corner. I would not be without it until they get older.

 

[stoveguy2esw]

(broken link removed to http://www.kidco.com/main.taf?erube_fh=kidco&kidco;.submit.gateDetails=1&kidco;.modelNumber=G70&kidco;.bc=gc)

hearthgate, well worth looking into IMHO i suffered a burn injury as a 3 year old. i'd hate for any child to suffer a similar injury. to be honest , stoves and toddlers scare the bajeebers outta me , but then im biased, it happened to me. proper hearth safety isnt just keeping the flue clean. educate, but segregate. my daughter at 15 now, could easily maintain my stove alone , but at 2 she wasnt getting within 6 feet of it.

just my 2 cents

 

[RedRanger]

See my avatar. The gate gives me piece of mind when my two young boys come running around the corner. I would not be without it until they get older.

Silly, just silly. We have raised 2 boys and a girl and only one of them ever touched the insert, and it was only one time. Ever wonder why so many kids have asthma today? allergies? Good God, lets purify everything, so there no longer exist any resemblance of immunity in the human body. and lets protect them from the evils of the hot insert or stove? no, no, don`t ever let them learn a lesson, I mean, how stupid can you be? I am not being fecious here, just think about your approach? I think it is called-"over protection". and teaches them diddly squat.

On a lessor being approach, lastly we have 3 cats, only one placed his nose too close to the propane insert, but he only did it once, and now has a healthy respect for how hot that glass can become. Doing things your way, means that your children, will have less respect for danger than the animals below them. :blank:

 

[pulldownclaw]

That's a little strong, Sonny. Teaching is one thing, but guarding against accidents is another. Everyone's stove setup is different, and your insert is alot more out of the way than ms360's mansfield. When we lived in our old house with a freestanding stove in our little living room we had a gate around it. Our children were babies and toddlers at the time. I was just as worried about our first son (who isn't very coordinated) taking a tumble and hitting one of the sharp corners on that steel stove as I was him getting burned, probably more so. We already had one trip for stitches just falling into a chair. Do you think that taught him to walk better? Now we are in a house with an insert, and last year we didn't have the gate up, with our kids at 7 and 3. I think while they are getting their feet under them it makes plenty of sense to have a gate up.