Looking for some advice!

Well, first off, how old is your son? That, to me, makes a huge difference. Sleep and night shift are super important. I was able to work night shift when my kids were little, but only on the weekends or when my spouse had time off so he could watch them while I slept. That really is my only concern here with this whole situation, to be honest, is your ability to sleep before and after a shift, and childcare.

As for the rest of it, a long commute is worth it for a job you love, and for coworkers you love. The "new nurse" feeling does suck, yes, but you get over it. It's scary to leave a familiar environment and routine and take a risk, because that risk doesn't always pan out. I've done it myself a couple of times. It worked out twice, twice it didn't. I always had a backup plan ready before I made the "jump" to a new unit/hospital, in case it turned out I was leaving the frying pan only to jump into the fire.

So my advice to you is this: make sure you have good, RELIABLE childcare and someone who can watch your son while you sleep and can be ENTIRELY responsible for him, not just a "backup" person. Make a backup plan in your head; figure out what you will do if you get there and it turns out you hate the unit or your coworkers are horrible or.....whatever. Just make your backup plan. Then, if you feel like you're ready, jump!

Well, I can tell you that I raised my four children while working full time midnights in a nursing home, and it was challenging, to say the least. My children were all school age when I switched to midnights, so if I worked during the week, I could sleep while they were in school. But I was almost always running on 4 to 6 hours of sleep having to get homework, dinner, extracurricular stuff, and baths done before it was time for me to go to work. If you're doing 12 hour shifts three days a week, that sort of helps some.

As far as switching to women's health care, I had a similar experience. I always wanted to try women's health but no one would hire me without experience in women's health. It wasn't until I moved that I found a facility that hired me on the postpartum unit with no experience. That's after applying 8 times to this facility, and not counting the numerous applications I put in to other facilities. My advice is to be persistent, follow up your applications with phone calls, and take an updated resume into the facility and ask to speak with someone in the department if possible (if you're not doing that already:)). I'm six months in, and I definitely had that "new nurse" feeling all over again. But it passes eventually, as you become more familiar with how things are done in the department. Best wishes to you!