Life with a newborn I think is the same whether you live on a boat or in a house or apartment or what have you. I've only every raised kids aboard a boat, Zach has been aboard since birth as well, so I can not speak to what regular land based parenting is really like except to say that I fantasize that it's full of long hot showers and endless free laundry. After going through the paces with Zach, I have learned this time around not to try to replicate baby set ups in a house. We make do with the space we have and it works out just fine and dandy.
The biggest difference is the lack of a crib or bassinette or even a separate room for the baby. Part of that is parenting style. Part of it is just how we're set up on the boat. At night, Naia sleeps with us in the master cabin. Zach is comfortable in his own cabin down the hall now (though we get night time visits often under the guise of "I want to check on my sister.") During the day, Naia sleeps wherever we can put her down in a clear space.
Our newest clear space is here.
This used to be the spot where our guinea pig Mookie lived. But Mookie is with a new home now (Zach decided one day that he deserved a bigger home. I jumped on that bandwagon as fast as I could. I was shocked and proud of my boy and overjoyed all at once). It's a good place for Naia to be close by but not in the middle of castle construction or a marble track in progress.
Then we have her "couch crib" on the settee. A softer alternative, we lay her on a sheepskin on the settee, bolster her in with a firm pillow (she likes to roll half way and scare the daylights out of us by making it to the edge), and hang a crystal to make rainbows from the window overhead.
Sometimes she snoozes here. Sometimes it's just a place to lay her down while I need my hands free to do something else. But as you can see the little miss is pretty flexible about her various arrangements... good thing too. We can't have a primadonna living on a boat afterall.
