Childcare options for infant on for 12hr work day???

Nurses General Nursing

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Hello, I'm new here and I am so excited to have found this website!!! I have a 6 month old daughter and I'm having extreme difficulty trying to arrange childcare so that I can go back to working the 12-hr shift!!! I recently transferred to an outpatient surgical eye clinic where I work 7-3:30pm M-F just so I could work full-time for benefits and send my daughter to daycare!!!

First of all, I may have made the biggest mistake of my nursing career by choosing to leave inpatient care in the Medical Observation Unit (worked there for the last three years). At the clinic, I feel that each day I lose all the skills I've worked so hard to master!!! But, I'm caught between a rock and a hardplace. I'm not sure if I should sacrifice my sanity so I could keep my daughter in the exceptional family daycare whicht took me months to find? Or, place her in a daycare that I don't feel 100% sure of so that I could go back to working 12-hrs?.

Please help...anyone. I have an interview tomorrow for an MICU position and I yearn for this learning experience!!!

Hi Januaryice, I also work 12hr shifts, days. I have been doing so for 5 years since my first child was born. I am a lucky one who has a mom-n-law who is also a nurse and watches my kids when I work. My husband works mon-fri and watches them on the weekends. My mom-n-law and I make sure that we work opposite shifts and trade off the kids that way. Not only is it costly(no daycare expenses), but I am comfortable having them there. Maybe you could find another nurse in your unit who has a similiar problem and you guys can have your boss put you on opposite shifts so you can watch her kids and she yours. You both would have more time off w/the kids and not be so worn out from working mon-fri in a unit you really don't like.

Just a suggestion. Good Luck and let us know what happens.

Love, Roach

Boy, would I KILL for a 7-3:30 position!! Look, I'm a divorced mom and I don't have custody of my kids because of those crazy shifts - kinda hard to be a single mom when you're gone until midnight, or worse yet, all night long - and when it takes several days to recover from some grueling shifts you can't really be there for the kids either. Not and be the kind of mom you want to be. I can't find a m-f day job to save my life! So I now have no friends, no personal life, and I don't have my kids because of those godforsaken 12 hour shifts.

Priorities, my dear, priorities. The kids have to come first. At least you're home with them in the evenings and can do things with them on the weekends. You will appreciate that more when it's gone.

Barbara

Remember, each person has only one childhood. All too soon you will have a teen who wants time with friends.

My kids are grown now. I worked 11P-7:30A then 12 hour nights when they were small. All I missed was sleep. I'd get up to attend something at school etc. My husband and my Grandmother were home when I was not so I had it pretty good.

Please don't miss being a Mom, it will be too late later.

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