I am a 32 year old single mother of 2 (a 4 month baby girl & 2 year old baby boy). I have some help from family and their father, but it is limited due to their work lives. I am currently in telecommunications and just found out a week ago I'm being laid off due to the relocation of my position as collections specialist. I am applying to a front counter position although I really don't want to work in that atmosphere.

I've been wanting to go back to school to pursue nursing, but I'm not sure how to go about it. My mind says go with the "great start" which would be to get my BSN so I can start as an RN, but that would require me to do clinicals for a year to 1.5 years. I'm not sure how well I can manage that time period based on my current lifestyle (averaging about 1985 in expenses each month). How would I work? Spend time with my kids? Have free time?

The other option that I recently started to consider was to go for my LPN, but I don't know much about it. How long does the program take? Are there clinicals? How to transition from LPN to RN? How much is the starting pay? What are the hours like?

I joined this site so I can get some direction and advice from women who have done both. I need to support my family while making this transition to nursing and I need to make the best decision for us as well concerning my time. Can you all help please?

Probably the route that would offer the most future flexibility is the BSN. Another route to RN is an Associate's, AKA "ADN". With prerequisites, you're looking at about the same amount of time. If cost is an issue, consider taking all your prerequisites at a Junior College, get your Lower Division Gen Ed out of the way, and then transfer to a 4 year school for the Upper Division Gen Ed and the BSN Program coursework. LVN/LPN, ADN, and BSN will require clinical time. Once you're in a program, any program, your flexibility options will decrease as you'll have to attend classes and clinical at the school's schedule, not yours.

As far as program length itself goes, BSN and ADN can both be 4-5 semesters. LVN/LPN can be 2-3 semesters. Currently, I work full-time and I used to substitute teach. Note "used to." I don't have the availability that I had before to teach. To make up the difference, I do get some assistance from family. My wife also works as much as she can and my daughter understands that I'm not home as much as I'd like, so she helps out around the house. Fortunately, I don't have to worry much about childcare because my wife gets home from work early enough that our child can be picked up before the after-school care program closes.

Being a single parent, you'll have to work the childcare part out. That's probably going to be the hardest part of everything, actually. If you can study while at work, that will increase the amount of time you can spend with family and friends. Just remember that once you're in school to become a nurse, you're stuck having to work around their schedule. It's not going to be easy, but it's only for a short while and you'll be ready to begin a new career and life.

I'm almost done with school myself, so this is definitely an issue for me as well. I'm going to do my preceptorship in a few weeks and that's going to require a LOT of last minute adaptations to my schedule, but it's only for about a month and after that, things will smooth out. We (me, my family, and my employer) are all looking forward to that happening.

I am a single mom to an 8 year old boy. Making sure that he is taken care of was first priority. I have a friend who takes care of him after school a couple of days a week and my ex takes him on days where there are delays or closings. I am doing 16 credit hours this semester and I won't lie, it is hard. And I don't have to work. He does competitive judo and we are always traveling somewhere. It just depends how much you want it. But you have to have a good support system in place.

You will have to complete all the pre req courses just to get in to a BSN program if you haven't already. I started a year and a half ago. Started out slow doing the allowable accepted online pre reqs first then built up to the science in class requirements. To date I am in my last semester of pre reqs (Anatomy and Physiology 2 plus Microbiology) I was just accepted to my dream BSN program and start in Aug. and will take 2 years/ 4 semesters. My point is that you could start off slowly. Also do tons of research on the programs available in your area. If you do enough reading on here you will find how utterly competitive nursing programs are now.

My best friend was a single mom of 3 small children and she made it. She sacrificed a lot but its all worth it now. Just remember its temporary and not forever and have a back up plan for everything.

Good luck!

Thank you all for responding. I think I will do what MyOwnBlueSky said and start off slow. I have many college credits, but they were for communication studies instead of any science program so I will start knocking those out this summer. Pray for me!