Questions about Babies on Boats

I have so many questions about how to raise the baby on the boat! I know it will all work out but my mind is full to bursting. I plan on posing a lot of questions to Cindy at Zach Aboard and to anyone else I can find who has raised or is raising their kids on boats. Here is my current list. I'll let you know as I find out the answers: 

1. What's the best way to bathe the baby on board? We don't really have the shower set up yet, we just use the marina facilities. We don't have hot water or running water. Do I boil water and add it to cooler water and just use a tub? Baby bathtubs look soooo huge. Won't a plastic tub work just fine?
2. I have read a lot of information about using new mattresses to prevent SIDS or about wrapping your current mattress. The baby will be in a corner of the V-berth separated by a handmade, wooden border so I can't roll over on him/her. Can I just use one of these to wrap the part of the mattress they'll sleep on, or does the whole mattress need to be enclosed?
3. Where will the baby crawl once they start moving? We only have one walkway area. How will I keep the floor clean enough for them to crawl on if it's our only passageway for walking up and down the boat?
4. When we go out sailing should we put the baby in a car seat and strap it to the cockpit? Should we always keep them in the cabin when they're really young?
5. There is no room for a high chair on the boat. How should I set up a good eating arrangement once he/she is taking solids?
6. I'm thinking about using a hybrid diaper called gDiapers. They can be used as disposables or cloth diapers. As a disposable they are very green (break down in a land-fill in 45 days versus 2,000 years.) I'm wondering about using them as a cloth diaper. How difficult would it be to cloth diaper on board? We use the laundry facilities at the marina. I wonder if they would be too freaked out if I washed my cloth diapers up there. Hmmmm.

I have so many more and will add them as they come. I just thought it would be illustrative to show the thinking process I'm going through as we get closer to our little one arriving.

Organizing the Boat

Eric and I have lived aboard now for two and a half years and the process of truly organizing our life on the boat still continues. While we don't have a lot of "stuff", we do have things that need a place on the boat but haven't quite found a home yet.

Like all of the tools needed to keep a boat running. Eric has been storing them in the quarterberth. He has multiple tool bags, tool boxes and kits:

Two weekends ago my wonderful girlfriend Kelly came over and took a trip to Target with me. We then came back and organized the heck out of this little area. All of the bins we used have working lids and everything is clear so we can easily view what we need. It's a welcome change to the once jumbled mess:

At first Eric asked me to not post the first photo that shows the mess that has been our boat for over two years but in the words of my favorite blogger, The Pioneer Woman, "I'm just keeping it real folks." Some people view living on a boat as really glamorous and some people view it as totally crazy and really hard. I think it's a mix of all those things :) I am certainly very, very happy that we moved aboard far in advance of our big sailing trip so that we have time to really live in the boat and figure out what works and what doesn't.

More organizing updates to come soon!

We're Expecting!

I'm happy to announce that we're expecting our first child in late July. This is one of the reasons that I've been pretty quiet on the blog lately. I'm 13 weeks and was sick with all-day "morning" sickness from weeks 6-12. Eric has been an incredible support through this. He's going to be a great dad.

We are still planning on living on our boat and raising the baby on board. I'll be making posts on the specifics of life on board with a baby. Feel free to follow along on the adventure!

Here's our little gummy bear at 8 weeks and 12 weeks:

 

Want to Be Part of a Brand-New Sailing Message Board?

We're starting a new sailing message board. It's in its infancy. We'd love to have new sailors or wannabe-sailors or we're-going-to-be-sailors soon. Come check it out www.thekeel.com. We'd love to have you!

Repairing the Main Sail

Some pictures from Saturday. We took advantage of the new green space in between our marina and The Wharf and spread out the main sail. Then we went through looking for rips, tears and wear. It was so exciting afterwards to bend it on (put it on the mast.)

 

  

You can see the rest of the photos in the slideshow linked in the post below.