kids and being Nurse

Nurses General Nursing

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I changed jobs less than 6 months ago.

I have been in healthcare for 18 years and 14 as an RN.

I got tired of dropping my kids off at the day care at 0645 and not picking them up until 8 PM.

I now work 7-3, 8-4 or 9-5---desk job and do 4-8 clinical hours per week during those times only.

How does everyone do it: no family nearby, husband travels as a pilot...what does everyone do for child care and holiday child care??

I disagree. If you have a husband or significant other that is willing to work with you, it is possible to have it all. My husband works the day shift, I work 3-11. We each pick up the house, work on the laundry and have the kids on our off time. He doesn't babysit, he parents. The house isn't always perfectly clean, but it works for us and I am happy with the way it has worked. I love my family, but I would be very, very unhappy if I couldn't work. Being a nurse is all I ever wanted to be, even before I knew that I wanted to be a mom, I knew I was going to be a nurse.

That is great that your husband is willing to work with you. I know mine would complain about never seeing me. Since I don't make a lot of money as an LVN, I have always worked the hours that work best for being a Mom. But once I get my RN and start making more money, hubby is going to have to be more flexible. I think that once he sees those fat paychecks, he will get over missing me so much. ;)

Specializes in ICU,ER.
Wow, you must be exhausted after 16 hours !! I'm sure it goes by fast with the fast pace of the ER, but I hope you get a good nights sleep afterwards to recover !!

Well, the good thing is...yes.... it goes by fast.

The bad....I only get to sleep a couple of hours when I get home because Ana is ready to go full throttle after that.

But I never work 2 in a row. I'll be able to sleep that night....I just drink tons of coffee and gogogo with her.

It helps knowing that I am doing what is best for us.

My wife is an RN for the ER on the weekend work program. She works Sat. and Sun. I am a paramedic who works 24 on 72 off. We have 3 kids (7, 5 and 11 months). We are fortunate that we don't have too many conflicts with childcare. Our parents are close and help out when needed. Our 2 oldest kids are actually from my first marriage. My wife is a wonderful mom to her step-kids. So much that the kids want to live with us and not their mother. We stopped by the other night at the ER to drop off dinner to my wife and Hannah, the 7 year old, asked my wife if she would teach her how to be a nurse. She said that she wanted to be a nurse just like Em when she got older. It would be hard with the kids if we didn't have the schedules that we do. We are blessed to work the shifts we do.

Specializes in critical care transport.
I don't have it all. I am currently a SAHM. I did like working as an RN. I had a baby in October, and planned to return to work part time nightshift, the same as before the baby.

Well... THAT plan went out the window. I planned on napping when the baby napped during the day, then napping when DH came home from work. On my last day after working, go to bed when the baby went to bed. HA! That plan was a joke.

Baby still does not nap for longer than 45min-1hr at a time, almost 9 months later. It takes me a good hour to fall asleep, so forget me napping when she naps. She still does not sleep through the night, (still up about 5 times a night) so I can't expect DH to get up with her that many times and be rested for work the next day. And with BFing/pumping you also have your sleep schedule all messed up. DH also started working a bunch of OT. So I would only get about an hour nap before returning to work at night. DH's work schedule is much more important, since he makes about double what I made as an RN. The bills do have to be paid. We have no family nearby. I can not see putting my baby in daycare since I WANT to work. I would if I had to work, but not b/c I want to work.

I guess I could work just weekends, but then there would be no family together time and that is something that is important to us. We agreed that I will go back every other weekend this January. We shall see if this plan works out. I hope it does, since I do not want to become stale being out of work so long.

My daughter was a light napper, too, and it always takes me a while to go to sleep. We moved half way across the country- no family.

Having a child definately changes things. I had to put off nursing school because I wanted to stay with my child. Hubby's sleep schedule was more important, as he is the main breadwinner, and I KNOW he wouldn't have lasted changing poopy diapers and feeding in the middle of the night.

BTW, are you a rottie fan? Our "first" child was a rottie who was well trained, and there wasn't ANYTHING that dog couldn't do. He died of bone cancer at 7, and I'd love to get another one, but I was sick of people being afraid of my dog.

My mom was nurse when I was growing up, a single mother. She would take us to a family members house before school, and we went to an after school program at the boys and girls club. She would then pick us up. She would cook in advance an either put it in fridge or freezer so it only had to be heated up when we got home. On weekends whether she worked or not we spent time with our grandparents or aunts and uncles. I think it helped her that we had family near by, and she had lots of friends. Even in high school where she worked a lot of double shifts (me and my sister went to college at same time - she had to save) dinner was still ready she called in the morning to make sure we got up for school. We had to leave homework out for if she got home after 11p so she would know we were doing it. I often wonder how she did it. I think it was a matter of priority for her, she had to support her family but she sacrificed a personal life so she could spend as much time as possible with her kids.

I think you need to have a support network to help you.

See, I thought the opposite; that nursing was family friendly in the sense that it can potentially be flexible (i.e. per diem, night shift, weekend shifts, etc)

This is what I thought, too. I have read numerous articles about how nursing is good for mothers who work outside of the home because of the many scheduling options not available in other professions. Unfortunately, there are too many areas in this country that don't have adequate daycare facilities for nurses who need childcare at odd ours, such as a 3-11 or 11-7 shift. Also, what about care for kids who are ages 12-15 years old, the in-between years? I have never heard of any kind of center/system that offers care for these kids who are too old for traditional daycare, but too young to stay home by themselves. Can 14-years-olds stay home by themselves, say, during the 3-11 shift? What can be done for these kids, especially if there are no family members or friends around who can watch them?

iI hear you about the 3-11 shift. My son is 18 and mostly comes and goes without much incident but my daughter is 12 and I am working straight eves. My husband comes home at 5:30 or 6 but she will still have three hours unsupervised after school most days. My solution is that I am going to find a high school girl to come and be a companion a few days a week. I don't want to rely on my son; I want him to spread his wings a bit.

I think it is really interesting to hear so many opinions about being a nurse with kids. I've been a middle school teacher for the past 5 years, but I just started an accelerated BSN program because being a teacher is even worse. Everyone thinks teachers have it made because we have summers "off," but that really isn't the case. We don't get out of school until mid-June, and we report back at the end of July. During the limited time we do get off, we end up working in our classrooms to prepare for the upcoming year. My 15 month-old daughter is in daycare from 6:30am - 5:30pm five days a week (including most of the summer)! One of the things that I found so attractive about nursing was the 12 hour shifts and being able to work nights or weekends. I guess being a working mom is difficult no matter what career you choose!

Well, I have to say this thread is really scaring me! As a nurse who's about to have a baby in 4 months, and with a husband who works 9-5 M-F, I was hoping to find a flexible position so my baby wouldn't need to go into daycare. My thoughts were to find a w/e only position and work on Sat and Sun. Right now I'm in a M-F 9-5 clinic position...

I posted a thread in the 'geographical locations' section under Minnesota asking for input from MN nurses about flexible positions they know of and actually like. I've had one response, so in addition to this thread I'm a little nervous...

It would be nice to hear from more people who made it work without using daycare.

Specializes in medsurg, urgent care, peds.

this is just the thread i've needed! i am a new mom of a cutie pie 8 wk girl. until my delivery i was working 7a-7p on a medsurg unit. i took my maternity leave with every intention of returning to my position, however after researching daycare and unable to find one thst would open @0600 for dropoff and pick up @ 2000 (on a good day), as well as being unable to endure the thought of missing 3 entire days a week of my child's life; i decided i must leave the job i enjoyed and go the 8-5 route. thankfully i can do this w/o leaving the hospital i work in. my husband is a firefighter, 24 on and 48 off. we could have easily scheduled my days on his off days, and him keep the baby, but to us our days off together come first. we have always worked the same days as much as possible to give us the max time together. hopefully one day the hospital i work for will provide onsite daycare, so i can return to the 12hr shift. until then i am very happy to do whatever it takes to be available to my family! :balloons: :penguin:

~amanda~ god's kid, wife, mommy, nurse

Well, I have to say this thread is really scaring me! As a nurse who's about to have a baby in 4 months, and with a husband who works 9-5 M-F, I was hoping to find a flexible position so my baby wouldn't need to go into daycare. My thoughts were to find a w/e only position and work on Sat and Sun. Right now I'm in a M-F 9-5 clinic position...

I posted a thread in the 'geographical locations' section under Minnesota asking for input from MN nurses about flexible positions they know of and actually like. I've had one response, so in addition to this thread I'm a little nervous...

It would be nice to hear from more people who made it work without using daycare.

I think that if your husband doesn't mind not seeing much of you, the weekends only idea is perfect. There are lots of places that are desperate for weekend nurses. You should have no problem finding a job.

I've been a true (read: never married) single mom for 16 years. Baby was preemie, too, so she went home after three months with meds. I worked Baylor nights until the hospital took it away. Had no family support. Friends cluck-cluck, but no offers of babysitting.

Won't go into the nightmare of trying to find a babysitter who would cover those hours, and for a baby on meds. Won't even talk about how much it cost once I found someone, even though they--unlike nurses--would just be sleeping all night while my child slept. Won't go into how much fun it was to take care of a baby--then a toddler--preschooler who had to go to special ed preschool during the day--school-ager after working all night. I think I've talked about it before. I'm still tired.

Was forced to go to a touchy-feely parenting group because my child was in a birth-to-three program, where I got to listen to a welfare mother chastise me for putting my child in daycare.

Child care at the hospital was 6-6, M-F. Great if you work in administration. Lousy if you work nights or weekends, one or both of which encompasses 99% of the staff nurses in the hospital. After the hospital took away the Baylor, I had to work regular hours, was still on nights. I had a sitter who wouldn't do Sunday or Tuesday. My supervisor was not happy when I asked not to be scheduled on Sundays. At one point I had a breakdown because of the child care problem. This hospital was lauded in Working Mother for being friendly to working mothers. Yeah.

My dream was to get out of nursing and open up a child care center for people who work nights. It didn't happen. Occasionally I still think about it.

As my child got older, I had to do some things I won't tell you about in order to survive. Those were the days when I paid the mortgage with a credit card and the babysitter with rolled up pennies. We are a surviving family.

She's 16 now and I am so glad not to need child care. I still feel guilty when I leave her home alone while I work, but she actually prefers her private time.

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