Best Nursing Career For Moms

adpiRN · Apr 25, 2014

I'm working through this myself right now : )

(And I have similar interests!)

I have 3 years of L&D experience and now am staying home with my toddler, planning to return to work soon.

I don't want to go back to full-time at this point. Even though 4 days off sounds nice, I found full-time floor nursing exhausting! And that's 3 nights of missing after school activities, homework, dinner, bedtime etc.

Plus most full-time hospital jobs require weekends and holidays which isn't very family friendly in my opinion.

Hoping to find something per diem which is more flexible.

I've always thought something like an outpatient surgery center would be ideal. Those jobs are often no weekends, no holidays, and sometimes you're done at 3 or 4pm.

Doctor's office would be good. There are usually RNs working in Peds offices.

School nurse would be great. Though I've heard pay isn't great, you'd have summers and every school holiday off.

And I think the NP role would be family friendly, especially outpatient.

I may go back for FNP at some point.

Good luck!

Mom2boysRN · Apr 25, 2014

Home health is a great area for moms to work. I accept as many patients as I want and for the most part decide when I see them. If something is going on at my son's school in the middle of the day I simply plan a break between patients so I can be at the school.

HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD · Apr 25, 2014

School nurse? At least the hours & schedule would jibe with your kids.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Apr 25, 2014

Just keep in mind that whatever your ultimate goals are, you are most likely going to need to gain experience for those areas first. Without acute care experience, getting into certain specialties--like you described--isn't going to happen.

The experience is gained by working whatever shifts are available if you are lucky enough to get hired by a hospital; evenings, nights, weekends, holidays, whatever. I'm sure you'd understand that seniority dictates (most of the time, most places anyway) what your schedule will be; as a newbie, you get whatever is available....and unfortunately it's not always family-friendly.

As long as you're prepared to put in the time to pay the dues up front, you can work into a more agreeable schedule later.

adpiRN · Apr 25, 2014

Sounds like the OP is still a long ways away from having children, if I understood correctly.

Yes, I agree that acute care experience is important and likely where you'd start.

My advice is after you graduate, before you have children, try and get a job in a hospital on a Peds floor as soon as you can. Do that for a few years and you'd have good solid experience to move to a Peds office, school nursing job or role as Pediatric NP.

RNperdiem, RN · Apr 25, 2014

First you need to decide if you want a job or do you want a career?

Understand that each comes with a trade-off.

Personally, I like per diem nursing in the hospital. You get to choose your days and shifts and can increase of decrease your number of shifts depending on your circumstances.

To get there you need to put in some years of full-time work upfront to gain the experience and skill you will need to function proficiently. If you are really wanting OB or peds, you will need to be persistent in getting that first job.

Ruas61, BSN, RN · Apr 25, 2014

It is so way early to think about specializing till you actually get your feet wet in clinicals.

It can all change in a flash.

Manage your student debt wisely, that can impede your future more than you think.

Good luck.