I had a 2 year old when starting nursing school & survived. I was in the same situation as you. No family around. Baby daddy was MIA. I heavily relied on my friends & their kids to help me with mine because I definitely had to get someone to help watch him so I could study, it was worth it IMO because whenever i did try to study or do homework with him around it would just drive us both crazy- he would want my attention & i couldnt concentrate
You can get creative though. YMCA has day care for their members to drop their kids off to play while you work out- you can just chill in the locker room or whatever to study/do homework while your little one plays.
You can also record lectures/search youtube videos on the subjects you are studying and listen while you play/watch your kid. I did A LOT of that whenever in a bind.
You can also teach your kid these lessons. My kid learned A LOT because I learned by talking it out. He still remembers stuff I would talk to him about lol
If you have a friend with a similar aged child, I would recommend inviting their kid over to play. I would actually get A LOT accomplished hw wise when I watched my BFF's daughter because my kid would have someone to play with
I used to take my kid to places like monkey joes, fenced in playgrounds, etc so he could play while i tried to get stuff done. It wasnt the BEST because I still had to keep an eye on him so it was distracting, but I could get assignments done (slowly at times, but still. better than not)
If you have daycare vouchers, you can always tell your daycare worker that you need time to study.
WIOA helps with low income families to pay for daycare as well.
There's tons of grants you can apply for as well to help pay for someone to watch your LO so you can study.
I would usually get my homework done at night after my LO fell asleep, but that was just me. I liked to study during the day and knock out assignments at night unless i was certain I knew the material well enough to do homework while i had the luxury of 'alone' time
Good luck! You can do it!
