When Kim and Adam moved onto a boat in London, they didn’t realise they’d end up having their first child while still living on it. Even further from their minds was the possibility that within their daughter's first year a global pandemic would erupt around the world which would confine them onboard. This is Kim's story of what it's like to first have a baby and then spend lockdown living on a 64-foot narrowboat with her husband and a toddler...

We bought our boat home in 2016. Snipe (named after the bird) is a 64-foot narrowboat built in 1988, and we fell in love with her the moment we saw her. Inside there's a living room with a wood-burning stove, a kitchen, two bathrooms (serious luxury, believe me), a double bedroom and a back room that has variously been used as a shed, office, studio and latterly, nursery.

After three years afloat we wanted to start a family but were concerned it wasn't a sensible idea to stay on the boat. When we looked into it, though, it turned out lots of families live on boats, and with the housing crisis in London pushing more and more couples in their early 30s onto the canals, there’s something of a boom of babies being born to boaters. We figured we had a good boat and were used to the lifestyle – so we decided to go for it.

There are some provisions for boating mothers, it turns out. You can reduce the amount you need to move the boat, and are allowed to stop for a few weeks in one place to allow you to access a hospital for the birth and recovery. We chose St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington and moored up in Little Venice, a short (though quite long when in labour) walk away. We ended up staying for a couple of months – not a bad place to start life.

Before Boat Baby was born we were careful not to buy too much baby paraphernalia, which was fine, babies don’t need much really. However, she made her entrance a couple of weeks ahead of schedule, so we hadn’t come up with a sleep setup yet. Specifically – we hadn't found a small enough cot. We had a Sleepyhead (a baby nest-type thing) on the bed, which I was convinced we could both fit around even though our bed is a small double and barely big enough for the two of us, let alone three.

After an uncomfortable few weeks, we finally discovered a folding cot – The Alma by Bloom – which was literally the smallest cot on the internet and the only one that fit to-the-millimetre in the space at the end of the bed. It wasn’t ideal, we had to climb around it to get to the back of the boat, but it meant the baby had her own sleep space and we could work on getting her into her own room (which we didn’t manage until nine months). 

I was fortunate that breastfeeding worked out for us. With no power for a steriliser, microwave or dishwasher, baby bottles would have been a nightmare. When we needed to, we used the cold water sterilising system, which is fine but takes up a lot of room and water, both of which are in short supply on a boat. Other boaters use pre-made formula and pre-packaged, sterile teats, which seems expensive – and wasteful – but is sometimes essential.

The next big event came in weaning. There is absolutely no room for a highchair on board. We started with a booster chair that sat on our table, briefly tried an IKEA highchair that just took up too much floor space and finally settled on a cool clip-on, canvas option that clamps onto the table. Blending and pureeing food was also a challenge. I could only do it at certain times of the day when we had enough solar power.

Bath time is a hilarious logistical nightmare. We only need a small amount of water so it makes more sense to boil a kettle than turn the gas boiler on. We end up filling the fold-up bath in front of the fire with water from the kettle. Forget 1970s, we’re back in the ‘40s! Like us, the baby doesn’t get washed as much as she might if she lived in a flat…

The lockdown changed things. We are lucky that we were on a mooring, so had running water and plugged-in electricity, and we don’t have people walking past our boat the whole time – a big problem from those living on the towpath throughout Central London. But with social distancing measures in place, we’re all three now cramped into our little space.

Working from home is a different story for us now. Where once we could pop to a café to get some work done, and use its Wi-Fi, we are both trying to work in the boat. Using our mobiles as hotspots and trying to stop our toddler, as she now is, climbing into the bin is a step change. And desk space. What desk space? It's a constant juggle and there is some doubt about whether the amount of data we're using costs more than we're actually earning.

Social distancing while boating is... hard. Our London Boaters community group shares guidelines including wearing gloves around water points and when using locks and other facilities and wiping down anything you've touched with disinfectant after you've used it. You just have to hope everyone is sticking to this. While under lockdown, we didn't have to move our boats as often, so there weren't as many boats on the move as you'd usually see. 

It's common in busy areas for boats to double moor – which is a bit tricky at this time. If you're on the outside boat, you climb over someone else's to access your own. This is especially common at queues for water or toilet points, and we're being extra careful not to interact too much with the boat we're moored to. It's sad as it's a very friendly, helpful community and we're used to catching ropes for each other and helping pull the boats in and get tied up. It's much harder on your own.

We're off-grid, so we generate our own power using two huge solar panels on the roof. They generate enough electricity to power our 12-volt boat fridge, our lights and all our appliances. We have converters to charge bigger items and USB sockets for phones and smaller electronics. Because of the amount of power we're using to keep laptops and other equipment running we sometimes have to run the engine to generate extra power, something we'd never normally do in summer.

One of the most obsessive things boaters talk about is the, ahem, facilities. There are various types of toilet you can have – a chemical loo, a pump-out with holding tank, or a compost. I’d love a compost loo but we inherited two pump-out toilets on Snipe, and that beats the chemical loo you have to empty yourself if you ask me! I'm feeling smug because I already get my toilet rolls through a plastic-free subscription service (delivered to my parents) so we have plenty of supplies.

Our galley kitchen is pretty much the same as the one you’d find in a small flat. We have a small gas cooker with four burners, grill and oven. We make tea using a stovetop kettle and toast under the grill (broiler). We have a fridge and cupboards and a plumbed-in sink for the mountains of washing-up. Gas is piped in from pressurised canisters safely stored in a gas compartment at the front of the boat. We have two and always try to replace the empty one immediately so we never run out.

Cooking three meals a day for us and the baby has really challenged our small kitchen, not to mention the mountains of washing-up. We have become very strategic in what we cook (one-pot recipes where possible!) and meal planning has become a family sport. Our tiny fridge is stuffed with food containers and making provisions last as long as we can is essential, as there's not much room to store shopping.

With no delivery address, getting everything we need can be a pain. There are boats that run through London regularly selling coal, wood and kindling, as well as diesel for the engine and gas. They're our key workers and have operated throughout the lockdown. Groceries are more of a challenge. With no car or freezer space, it's hard to do a 'big shop' in person so we have to sneakily put in a local postcode when we do online deliveries and rush out to meet the driver before they get lost.

We have local friends with a land address so sometimes we add to their online shopping and go and collect the bags from outside their flat. When we bring shopping into the boat we're careful to get rid of any packaging outside and wipe off anything we can't discard. Of course, we wash our hands after unwrapping the shopping but I do worry that the virus could transfer to our clothes. Other than that we don't have a quarantine area and I sometimes worry we're not being careful enough.

The idea of self-isolating on a boat with two other people is laughable. If one of us gets the virus, all three of us will have it. We don’t even have a sofa big enough to sleep on now, so there’s no way one of us could hole up in the bedroom to get over the illness. Both our sets of parents are in the risk category, so we can’t go there either. And then there’s the idea of caring for a baby when one or both of us is ill. We’re being super careful to try and not catch it, but who knows?

It's hard to keep your distance from fellow boaters on boats close to your own. We live in close quarters and the community is very interactive. Our neighbour bakes us bread, and there's always something you need to borrow. To begin with, we really pulled back from this but as everyone has been isolating for months now, we're cautiously accepting things like home-baked bread again. We're still careful about hand washing, and despite many hopeful arms, we're not passing the baby around for cuddles yet.

There have been some positives to come out of coronavirus. Like lots of children around the country, our toddler now has constant access to both her parents. And we’re able to do some really nice things together as an isolated family. We can feed the ducks from the bow without even having to leave our home. We can go out on the canoe as our daily exercise. And if we don’t feel safe or isolated enough where we are we can move our boat somewhere more remote. Open space – particularly open water – is very calming in this situation.

Another benefit of slowing down is appreciating the small things around us. We’ve spent the last few years training ourselves to do this. The boat is very good mindfulness training and enforces a schedule. It has had to be moved every two weeks, it has had to be tended. Overall, I think it’s good for us. So now this is enforced on all of us, we’re coping fairly well because it’s something we’re used to. We were already tied down, to the boat and the baby.

I do believe this is a great way to grow up. The boat is safe. Doors are high up and bolted from the roof, the fire has a fireguard (which is how she learnt to pull herself up and is her favourite thing to cruise around) and we’re so in nature – it’s wonderful. She gets loads of natural light, sees lots of animals (she loves the ducks, ducklings and even the scary swans), and we take her outside as much as possible because we don’t have much space.

There are little things I worry about; she doesn’t have a full-size bath, which I loved to play in when I was a child. And as she grows up, will it be hard to support her creativity if we have no room to store craft supplies or space for her to play with paints and glue and glitter? A bigger question – will she have to be an only child?

We are reaping the benefits of the life we’ve chosen, but also dealing with the hardships – now more than ever. The future feels very uncertain for all of us right now so I feel lucky that we own our own home, which gives me some sense of stability. I feel confident that we can give our child a happy life onboard, though perhaps it will be for longer than we originally planned.

At some point, the balance may change and we may decide it’s time to pack in the oars and move onto dry land. Whatever happens, I think that our relationships as a family are stronger for all this. We are used to living very close together and are good at it. It’s probably made us more affectionate and patient, because we have to be. Hopefully, it will make our daughter feel very secure as she grows up, be that on land or on water.

Read more: the man who spent lockdown in his own private ghost town