Sailing with 1 year olds

My guys are only 9 months right now, but I'm looking ahead to when they are 12-17 months and looking for advice from you 2nd year folks.

We are planning on taking our boys on a trip on our sail boat from Washington to Alaska this summer and we will be gone for 4.5 months. We don't know what to expect from kiddos in that age range and were hoping you all might be able to chime in on things that we should think about.

Our boat is small with no separate cabins. Each boy will have their own berth for sleeping, but we will need to rig some sort of cloth enclosure for the bed...think cloth sided crib. We will be anchoring every evening, but there will definitely be days that we can't get off the boat due to weather or long sailing days. My biggest concerns are around naps/ sleeping with us all living in the same small space and them being able to get enough of the wiggles out if we are cooped up for a couple of days and can't get off the boat.

Naps have been challenging for us and we are just now on the 2 naps a day schedule...and we've had success with separating them for naps. This is not something we'll be able to do on the boat, but I'm thinking 3 more months is a lot of time for them to mature into better nappers (how's that for sounding optimistic?). What kind of nappers are your 1 year olds? How do long summer days impact your kiddos night sleeping? The farther north we go, the longer the days will be.

How much physical exercise to your 1 year olds need during the day?

How much "entertaining" do your kids need? Are there any special toys for your 1 year olds you might recommend that don't take up much space? We think we can rig a johnny jumper up for some physical exercise...do your 1 year olds like johnny jumpers, or would there be something else you might recommend?

I realize this kind of trip seems completely insane to most people and it may be difficult to understand why we would do this, but do you have any other advice as we embark on this adventure with our 1 year old twins?

I will tell you that we are experienced sailors with a very seaworthy boat. We are extremely safety conscious and wouldn't even consider taking this trip if there was any question about keeping our kids safe. The waters are mostly very protected and weather forecasting is good...we won't be taking any chances. We of course have life jackets and will have harnesses to keep them on deck should they decide they want to go swimming. We aren't as worried about safety precautions as we are about what to expect from our kiddos at that age.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

 

I have no advice, but I know of another twin mom who lives in Washington state as well, and I know they own a boat and go out on it a lot. I will send her in this direction! She does have her second set of twins, so I am not sure if she will get to it, but I will point her in the right direction!

Good luck!

 

Thank you!

 

Kudos to you for embarking on an adventure with your kids! What a neat opportunity for them to experience a different way of life. At 12-17 months old, my girls needed a fair amount of physical exercise... most of it in the form of walking and running. If your boat has a large deck, you could create a route for them to travel and several times a day cheer them on while they make the circuit. I wouldn't suggest a jumper - at least for my kids, as soon as they could walk they DID NOT want to be contained. At that age my kids also loved to climb, so if you can fit some large foam wedges (yeah - lots of space on a boat, right?) that would be worth it. Or maybe you have other things they can climb on in the boat.

As for sleeping, I'd get them used to sleeping in the same room prior to the trip so you don't have a week of cranky babies because they haven't napped. By that age, they might be ready to move to one nap a day and you can just tire them out in the morning and expect they'll sleep for 2-3 hours in the early afternoon. We needed to put black out curtains on our windows in order to get our girls to nap during the warm sunny weather - is that a possibility on your boat? Tinfoil covering the windows might work.

12-17 months is an age where my kids needed a decent amount of entertaining. Or maybe I should say that they had a very short attention span so it seemed like we went through tons of toys just to keep them happy. Of course, you'll have endless vistas and shore stops to keep them occupied some of the time. I'd stock up on stacking cups and board books at the very least for rainy day play.

Your trip sounds so exciting - I hope it's fun!

 

Hi there - I'm the twin mom Meg was referring to. Your trip sounds exciting! Where are you going? what kind of boat do you have?

My older twins are almost three and a half and we spent a lot of time out on our sailboat with them before I got pregnant with the second set. We didn't go on any trips anywhere near like what you are planning, it was mostly long weekends and some two week trips. They spent their first birthday on the boat in the San Juans and Gulf Islands.

I don't know how you feel about this, but one of our keys to success was a portable dvd player, I found it to be the best way to get through the time when we were underway and there really wasn't much else for them to do. I took their two portable booster / feeding seats with trays, and I would put those seats on the floor in the salon with a box of toys and books the between the two and the dvd player propped up on the settee where they could see it. They were at the lowest point in the center of the boat, so it was the mellowest place if things got bumpy and they had plenty to occupy and keep their attention. I felt they were safest being contained and not trying to crawl around when the boat was moving and not very steady. At that age, the Baby Signing Time and Elmo videos were the most popular. I could feem them breakfast or lunch there while underway, they could help themselves to toys and books, and they had something to watch. It's helpful to have a way to keep them contained and entertained when/if you need to go topside to help out with docking or something. We also used those booster seats in the cockpit for meals or just sitting in nice weather.

For sleeping, we turned the quarter berth into a crib - we used one of those metal play-yard gate things and put it into the quarter berth to make it into a crib with a gate that opened. The first night or two was always hard, they would be so wound up. But then once we settled in they did ok, they would be so tired at the end of the day. and all that fresh air makes them sleep good. We also put the dvd player where they could see it but not reach it and we had a little bed time video we played each night that helped them wind down. (called "make a wish, little fish" - fish scenes and lullaby music). It helped to provide a predictable bed time routine for them. I also always felt like this contained space provided a really safe place to lock them in if we ever had a situation where we both needed to be on deck and I needed to be able to contain them somewhere with no supervision.

I know it sounds like we park them in front of videos a lot, and honestly at home they hardly ever get to watch anything, but on the boat I found it to make things a lot easier for those times when they want to be active but we really need them to be mellow.

I never had a concern about them getting physical activity at that age. At 1 year neither of mine were walking, so being able to scoot, crawl, cruise in the confined boat space was perfect for them. The size of everything on the boat is great for them, I think they feel comfortable in a smaller space. Crawling around the floor and climbing around on the settees and bunks seemed to be plenty of activity. We took the salon table out of our boat to open up the floor space so they had room to play, and we were ok just living without it and eating out of our laps.

I'd be happy to answer any other questions if I can. As I said, we never did anything of the length you are talking about, but we did spend a lot of time with them on the boat at those ages that yours will be at. They just love it! Feel free to PM me if there's anything else you want to know.

 

Hi There,

I'm very excited to have stumbled upon a thread with other sailing families. Unfortunately our twins are too young for me be of any help with your questions (they're just 2 months old), but I'm very interested to hear what solutions work for you on your boat. We live aboard our sailboat in Vancouver, in fact our twins were boat dwellers from 3 days onwards. So far we haven't left the dock with them, but I've been wondering how we'll manage sailing this summer (and in the future). Also, we did the trip that you're planning two summers ago (2009). We took 4 months to go from Vancouver to Glacier Bay and back, although we had no children then, so kudos to you!

Anyways, if you have any questions about sailing to Alaska or any advice about kids aboard boats let me know. Also, if any sailing families stop in Vancouver, send me a message, we'd be happy to meet up and/or help with anything you need.

-sarah

 

Thank you all for your detailed and thoughtful responses! The information will really help for planning ahead and thinking through what we are going to need. Of course we will be learning a lot on the fly and I imagine the first several days will be REALLY hard until we all get in the groove, but we will be able to prepare as much as possible with your help.

I'm so excited to hear that there are other sailing families with twins in our area SeattleLisa and 241! 241, I will PM you and maybe we can meet up in Vancouver as we travel north. We have always wanted to visit Vancouver with our boat.

Thanks again all!

 

No advice for a boat in particular, but things my kids liked at that age that didn't take up too much room were board books, stacking/nesting cups, pretend cell phones, and those rings that stack on a peg. If you have any room for it, they also love those cars that you sit on and scoot around. They are not very big and if you have one it might be a good way to harness energy instead of them just running. Ours is lightning mcqueen and we got it from walmart for about $20.

You didn't ask anything about feeding, but that might be another challenge since 1 year olds can be particularly finicky. Start figuring out how to stockpile lots of finger foods and get them used to sippy cups so that they can drink lots of water while they are out exposed to the summer air all day.