Baby on Board
"Oh, what's it like with a baby on a boat?' she said, accompanied with a pitying look whilst I clambered onto the boat with a pram, baby and shopping bags in tow. It's not the first time a passer by has decided not to just 'pass by', but it may well be the last.
Babies are normally quite small so to begin with having a baby on board was absolutely fine. In fact better than fine. It was magical. The fluffy ducklings that swam up to the boat to greet us on the day we brought our son home were evidence that most of the time, living on a boat with a baby is like being in a Disney movie. The low cost way of living enabled my partner Chris to take a full 3 months off work to spend with me and Felix at the beginning of his life.
In terms of equipment; if a baby gizmo wasn't dual purpose, second hand or collapsible we weren't buying it. A half moon feeding pillow doubled up as a way to prop the baby up on the sofa and instead of a baby gym we'd lay out a picnic blanket in the kitchen area with his toys on. A bouncy chair that had a removable fabric seat stretched over thin metal legs was a good space saver as was our collapsible baby bath which we stored in the shower. I found the limitations on space made me only buy or seek out what Felix really needed and I really enjoyed the early days with him but logistically we had some difficulties.
For example, to give Felix a bath I'd have to set up his bath on the kitchen floor and boil 3 precious pans of water to fill it before stripping Felix off and getting him in it. Then getting him out of the bath, wrapped in a towel and dressed for the night would have to happen somewhere else as the bath would still be taking up the kitchen floor - so I'd have to keep stepping over the tepid bath water with a baby and eventually have to take the whole sloshing trough out the bow doors to tip in the canal and then clean the bath, and collapse it back down and put it in the shower being careful not to make too much noise and wake sleeping son. You can see why my son didn't have a bath in his bed time routine!
Loading a pram on and off a boat was laborious, the muddy towpath was brought in on the wheels of the thing which took up 50% of our living space.
Also, no washing machine on board and a child that vomits up to 30 times a day... not ideal. I'd have a full laundry load of clothes in 2 days easily. It was expensive and hard work, hauling the dirty clothes and pram over the boat to find the nearest launderette
The biggest issue for me above all else was the lack of postcode. A fabulous liberty but with such freedom comes great confusion for every postcode owning automobot at every doctors reception across the NHS. I've given up trying to explain and now just book temporary appointments wherever we are with a feeble lie about visiting friends. It also makes it hard to sign up to clubs with future commitments (my excuse for not doing buggyfit).
It's with all of the above in mind (but mainly the postcode) that begrudgingly we have decided to 'sell out' and buy on land. It's been an extraordinary experience and I feel that we have learnt so much about living in a low impact way. We are of course devastated to say goodbye to our boat who has looked after us so well and showed us so many adventures but life is full of chapters and this is just another one so onwards and upwards...
Babies are normally quite small so to begin with having a baby on board was absolutely fine. In fact better than fine. It was magical. The fluffy ducklings that swam up to the boat to greet us on the day we brought our son home were evidence that most of the time, living on a boat with a baby is like being in a Disney movie. The low cost way of living enabled my partner Chris to take a full 3 months off work to spend with me and Felix at the beginning of his life.
In terms of equipment; if a baby gizmo wasn't dual purpose, second hand or collapsible we weren't buying it. A half moon feeding pillow doubled up as a way to prop the baby up on the sofa and instead of a baby gym we'd lay out a picnic blanket in the kitchen area with his toys on. A bouncy chair that had a removable fabric seat stretched over thin metal legs was a good space saver as was our collapsible baby bath which we stored in the shower. I found the limitations on space made me only buy or seek out what Felix really needed and I really enjoyed the early days with him but logistically we had some difficulties.
For example, to give Felix a bath I'd have to set up his bath on the kitchen floor and boil 3 precious pans of water to fill it before stripping Felix off and getting him in it. Then getting him out of the bath, wrapped in a towel and dressed for the night would have to happen somewhere else as the bath would still be taking up the kitchen floor - so I'd have to keep stepping over the tepid bath water with a baby and eventually have to take the whole sloshing trough out the bow doors to tip in the canal and then clean the bath, and collapse it back down and put it in the shower being careful not to make too much noise and wake sleeping son. You can see why my son didn't have a bath in his bed time routine!
Loading a pram on and off a boat was laborious, the muddy towpath was brought in on the wheels of the thing which took up 50% of our living space.
Also, no washing machine on board and a child that vomits up to 30 times a day... not ideal. I'd have a full laundry load of clothes in 2 days easily. It was expensive and hard work, hauling the dirty clothes and pram over the boat to find the nearest launderette
The biggest issue for me above all else was the lack of postcode. A fabulous liberty but with such freedom comes great confusion for every postcode owning automobot at every doctors reception across the NHS. I've given up trying to explain and now just book temporary appointments wherever we are with a feeble lie about visiting friends. It also makes it hard to sign up to clubs with future commitments (my excuse for not doing buggyfit).
It's with all of the above in mind (but mainly the postcode) that begrudgingly we have decided to 'sell out' and buy on land. It's been an extraordinary experience and I feel that we have learnt so much about living in a low impact way. We are of course devastated to say goodbye to our boat who has looked after us so well and showed us so many adventures but life is full of chapters and this is just another one so onwards and upwards...
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