Reviewing for NCLEX with an 18 month old

marjaroa · Jan 17, 2014

Hi lovelies!
I'm a Stay at home mom and had my BSN year 2006,graduated from the Philippines and was a Registered Nurse 3 months later.Yipee!Migrated here in the US last 2011 and got married to the love of my life.2012 we're blessed with my beautiful baby girl!Fast forward (sorry kinda looong intro ☺️)I am now scheduled to sit for NCLEX on April 5 '14!!!I have enrolled to Kaplan On Demand and have started the review this week.And now I feel like I'm drowning,specially with the core contents(graduated ages ago!) and the time management.
I just wanna know if there's another me out there?I love my baby girl more than anything else but I can't seem to juggle all of them.Please do share your tips and success stories!Thank you in advance!❤️❤️❤️

Being a mother is prolly one of the hardest thing to do and to pair it with nursing? Props to you! The only thing that we are similar is that I graduated also from the Philippines and it wasn't that long ago (2011). You should take a prelim exam to size where you stand. A baseline data then look into your strong and weak points. It might be good to schedule your study time with the child's nap time. You should also use your child as a reference for pedia normals :) That would be fun ^_^ like observing her normal behavior and relating them so you are reminded of the pedia normals :)

Mrsmay · Jan 17, 2014

Thank you @marjaroa!It really is hard but so rewarding.She's a handful lol!I did some diagnostic exam and checked on my weak/strong points.Are you done with Nclex?Thank you for the tips!

RN59217 · Jan 17, 2014

I did Kaplan On Demand too. I sent my 11 month old to the babysitter's while my husband was at work. It's just too hard to study while the kids are home. I studied during the time while my son was out of the house. I would study also in the evening while my husband was watching him. Good luck!

Mrsmay · Jan 17, 2014

Thank you @cmoul001!It sure is hard!May I ask what review materials didi you use beside the Kaplan?Thank you!And how was your exam?

marjaroa · Jan 17, 2014

Thank you @marjaroa!It really is hard but so rewarding.She's a handful lol!I did some diagnostic exam and checked on my weak/strong points.Are you done with Nclex?Thank you for the tips!?

I just got done with NCLEX last Jan. 14. I kinda want kids but I know I'm not ready for the commitment it takes so I'll just continue on playing with my niece and nephews for now. Haha!

I used the Pearsonvue Exam cram practice questions. Personally, it worked for me as the format of the questions is the same as that of the real exam and it came with a CD to practice questions. I was cramming so I did like 250 questions a day so that's 1 chapter a day with the book. There's only 6 chapters. I suggest if you get it do it using the CD and go study mode so that along the way you can just click to see the answer rather than flipping the book every now and then to see the answer.

A lot of people also suggest PDA by LaCharity and I opened it when I was in a bookstore. It was a choice between Pearsonvue or LaCharity and I chose Pearsonvue and I'm good with my decision. If you can afford both the PDA and other references then it wouldn't hurt :)

ssk5 · Jan 17, 2014

I graduated in 2004. I have 18 month old baby too. I took Nclex twice and failed. It was difficult to study with kids,in laws and nephews at home. So I sent my baby to India(very painful) to prepare for my exam. I sent her when she was 10 months old with my in laws. My exam is in next week. I am doing very hard work to pass the test and very eager to get my baby back here (If everything goes well).

RN59217 · Jan 18, 2014

Thank you @cmoul001!It sure is hard!May I ask what review materials didi you use beside the Kaplan?Thank you!And how was your exam?

I also used my Saunders book a little. Did the Comprehensive Test in the back and read some content topics. But pretty much I relied on Kaplan... and my drug book.