UKH

Looking at a bunch of tents with blackout inners - vango alpha 300, quechua have some...

The idea would be to prevent a 2 year old rising at 4am while camping

Does anyone have such a tent, are they properly dark inside or is it a gimmick?

Also would be good to know of any I've missed, sort of thing you'd backpack with and sleep 3.

No idea on current models, but on a summer camping tour in Iceland 30odd years ago we needed a torch to find things even in the day. 

I work at Decathlon here in The Netherlands and I can asure you that the Quechua Fresh & Black Tents are properly dark inside

Yes they work - they are proper dark and cooler than other tents in the glare of the sun. You need a head torch inside during the day to find the way out.

They can't stop the birds tweeting though so only fix 1/2 of your problem!

We have a large Vango family tent, the blackout inner is a little darker but not exceptional. Most of the light comes in through the front of the inner, which is not made of the blackout material.

Can't comment on other brands.

Turn the store lights on then!

By the way, try to add some glow in the dark fabric to the zipper on the inside. Saw some people this weekend struggling to get out of the tent because they couldn't find the zipper in the dark  

We bought a Vango Airbeam family tent last spring which supposedly has a 'black out' inner, but which is not much darker than any other tent I have been in/owned... So we stil have the delights of young children going to bed late and waking super-early...

The Decathlon ones do seem to be properly dark inside.

I have the decathlon pop up one. Really dark and cool inside even with bright sunlight outside.