Nurse wife Cop hubby

[Mrs149]

How do you do it? With a nurses schedule and a police officer husband schedule how do you do it?

I have recently been offered an ICU job after years of no bites in the nursing world after nursing school and after working a year as a dialysis nurse. This is a dream, but now I have two children (age 2 and 1month) and I can not figure out how people do it. We have wonderful parents who help us with caring for them, but with my new schedule we will definitely burn them out. I will be working a lot of evenings as will my husband and I have no desire to have my children sleep away from home every night. Any suggestions or info. on how everyone is making this work is welcomed.

I also have to say to the nurses not getting jobs, I was there and some how went from no job offers to this!

[quiltynurse56, LPN, LVN]

Is there any mature teens or college aged girls around you trust who can come stay with your children some of those evenings/nights?

[Farawyn]

People do it by changing shifts. If he works days, you work nights. Then you hand off the kids.

[brownbook]

I think, hope, you may be worrying prematurely. As Farawyn posted shifts, hours, can be adjusted. Try not to obsess on what might happen...."When will I sleep....I'll never see the kids....my husband and I will never sit down and eat dinner together....my parents are going to say we can't watch the kids anymore", etc.

Give it a few weeks to adjust to whose working what schedule. If it isn't working maybe one of you can cut back to part time or 12 hour shifts. In a 24/7 job there is a lot of room to "play" with.

[iluvivt, BSN, RN]

While you should not worry needlessly you SHOULD have a plan. You will have to juggle,have more than one resource and have back up plans. Think about it this; if a single parent can do it so can you since you have another whole capable adult invested in raising your children and that is a lot! I did not start out as a single parent but that is how it turned out and I was on my own.

1. You will need to coordinate your schedules. Often, one persons schedule is more flexible than the others and that person will have to move around. Sometimes one person has a set schedule and the other does not or you both have set schedules. If your husband has a set schedule than you know the days you can work are the ones he is OFF. Usually this will not leave you enough days to work IF you are working full time but again that depends upon whether you are working 8 hour or 12 hour shifts. If you both have to work the same day then you will of course need childcare help that day and you should optimally try to limit those days! What is your schedule going to be and how much choice are you going to have? This too may get easier once you are off hospital orientation and unit orientation and training.

2 Have more than one resource you can use in a pinch or as needed such as you parents and in laws,a trusted sitter or family friend and be willing to compensate them for the time. This does not always have to be money but they must know they are appreciated!

3 You probably already know this but locate a medical facility that you can take you children to after hours if they need to be seen . When my daughter got sick,which was a lot due to her asthma and frequent URIs, it was not always a crisis. My parents had a note and copies of her insurance and we had her pediatrician and other places to take her. You need to have an idea of what your plan will be for ill children and maybe rotate who has to stay home if that is the plan. School and school activities and homework is a another challenge you will face!

4 If you are new to ICU you will have a lot to learn and that can be very stressful so try not to take on too much during this huge learning curve.

[Tex.]

Well, my family was of no help AT ALL, unless we invoked the emergency response, so we somehow winged it thru the first 10 years just the two of us. I can say that I mostly only saw my husband in passing for most of those years, and we used to jokingly say "that's why we get along so well".

We are celebrating our 15th anniversary tomorrow, so there is probably some truth to our old joke. What's that saying...absence makes the heart grow fonder? It surely can cause problems if you let it, but it really can make you appreciate the (little) time you have together if you just slow down and pay attention to eachother.

[Tex.]

Just want to add, I know your op was focused on the kids and schedules, and sorry that I'm no help there....just speaking to what I know. Good luck to you two.

[ebrooks1013]

Well my husband works four days a week and I work three. I work on the days he has off most of the time so someone is watching my son and we spend the mornings together and the evenings when he gets off on his days. It is working so far. It keeps from asking the in laws to watch our son so much but on the days we want to have the day off together I just arrange my schedule to have that day off and ask my in law to baby sit but that's only once or twice a month.