A SIX-month-old baby who was found dead while on a canal boat holiday in Lymm died of natural causes, a coroner has concluded.

Tobias Isaac Roland Hayes, who was born in February 2018, died in Warrington Hospital on August 24 last year after his heartbroken parents found him unresponsive during a family holiday.

On Wednesday, during a hearing at Warrington Coroner's Court, Tobias' mum, India Gibson, spoke of how the family travelled on a narrowboat through the Manchester and Cheshire area from Sunday, August 19, 2018.

This included Tobias, also known as Toby, India, Tobias' dad Jamie, and Jamie's sister and cousin.

India, who lives in Mount Pleasant Road, Kent, with Jamie, told the court how the travel cot the family had bought for Tobias to sleep in was too big for the narrowboat so they resulted to different sleeping arrangements.

She said: "We had a sofa cushion which was hard, because we knew babies were supposed to sleep on a hard surface."

The court heard how Tobias had been sleeping on the cushion which had a duvet laid over it.

On Thursday, August 23, the family moored the narrowboat near to the Golden Fleece pub in Lymm.

India recalled: "We went and had dinner and then it was starting to get close to Toby's bedtime, which was about eight-ish, so it must have been 7.30pm.

"Jamie took him back to feed him."

The rest of the family returned to the narrowboat shortly after Jamie had fed Tobias and got him ready for bed.

India said: "We said goodnight to him and we went and played card games."

Jamie told the coroner he checked on Tobias at 10.30pm and saw no problems but when India checked him before she went to bed at around midnight she was shocked to find him unresponsive.

She said: "I went to check on him and I knew something was wrong.

"He was on his front, face down- the duvet was in front of his face."

The family quickly called the emergency services and initiated CPR.

Police and paramedics attended the scene and stressed that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident.

Tobias was taken to Warrington Hospital where, despite staff's efforts, he was pronounced dead at 2.10am.

Dr. Rajeev Shukla, a consultant paediatric pathologist who performed the post mortem at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, said there was nothing medically wrong with Tobias.

He could not say if Tobias' sleeping arrangements had contributed to his death as he said it was possible he could have died without that factor.

Dr Shukla said Tobias may have had electrical abnormalities of the heart, an irregular heartbeat, something which could have caused his death but would not be seen in a postmortem.

As he could not be sure, he deemed the medical cause of death as unascertained.

Alan Moore, senior coroner for Cheshire, concluded: "It is more likely than not that Toby had suffered an irregular heartbeat."

He added that he did not think Tobias' sleeping arrangement played a part in his death, saying: "Toby had slept like that for days without problems."

Mr Moore deemed Tobias' death to be one of natural causes.

He told the family: "I sincerely hope that you never, ever, feel that you were responsible for Toby's death because the evidence I have heard shows that you were not."