To sleep, perchance to dream...

 The issue I am currently wrestling with is where to put the baby. See Kitty in the photo above? She is laughing at us and our feeble attempts to both get her to sleep in her own bed for an entire night and to figure out where to put her bed on the boat.

We bought the boat with the intention of having 3 people living aboard. It was fairly easy and straight forward. Maura would take the rear double cabin, which was too cramped for Mark and I and we would use the pilot berth (which doubles as the nav station seat) on passages and take the front v-berth when at anchor. Then along came Kitty who is a joy and a treasure but is completely disrupting our perfect plans for accomodations on the boat.

At this point in time, Kitty starts out the evening in her pack in play in Mark's and my room. After she wakes up for the third or fourth time in the night to eat, I bring her into bed with us in a desperate attempt to get some sleep. I'd just keep her in bed with us full time if it Mark's sleep wasn't disrupted so much by the wee one and her need for late night snacking. I am hopeful that evenutally she will sleep through the night and I very much hope it happens before she is off to college.

Here in lies the rub on the boat. While she could bunk in the back cabin with Maura, I am well aware that Maura is 10-almost 11 and her needs are different than Kitty's. We could put Kitty in the pilot berth and just bunk on a settee during passages but Kitty is a very light sleeper and being so close to the nav station and the noise from the communications station is guaranteed to keep her awake. We could put her in the salon on one of the settees with a lee cloth, but then we would have to tiptoe around the salon at far too early an hour. The v-berth would work with a bunk board while at anchor for the girls but then we would be scrambling for a place for them to sleep during passages and Mark and I would be too cramped in the rear cabin. *sigh*

I'm not sure what the solution is at this point in time and would love to hear how others have managed with kids with such a large difference in ages. I never, ever thought I would say this but boy does a catamaran look appealing just now.



The girls in a moment of togetherness