To all you nursing students out there with families and responsibilities

[FutureOBNurse2118]

I am 21 years old, and I'm married and have a 1 year old.. and I'm going to be starting nursing school in 2 months. I keep hearing how hard nursing school is and that its practically impossible to work or really do much of anything else while your in nursing school... Well, I don't really have a choice but to juggle several things at once. I have a husband who will be transitioning out of the army soon, so I may have to work weekends maybe once during the week... I have a 1 year old which is a job in itself... so I would just like to know from all of you awesome mothers and wives in nursing school... how do you do it? Do you have a set schedule, do you plan out your days, weeks.. how can I make life a little less complicated while embarking on the crazy journey? Any advice is appreciated.

[tlc2u]

I set aside, all work around the house, until the weekend, and if it could not get done in a couple hours one weekend day then it didn't get done. I was not the only one in my class who did this. I spoke to others who said they laid out their entire week of clothes on the weekend (a complete set of clothing for each day) and they only did laundry on the weekend.

When I began nursing school my 13 & 15 yr. old sons were forced to start doing all their own laundry. And my husband did his own too.

Quick frozen dinners, pizza delivery, paper plates and plastic utensils. Couldn't have done it without them.

I went to a community college and we had a short break between semesters and summers off. Anything like getting my car inspected and going to training classes for my work (which were 9am - 4pm) I scheduled all of these things for breaks or even better during the summer.

Definitely used an electric alarm clock "with battery back up" in case the power went out. It is not worth risking being late to class or clinical.

Kept extra computer paper and ink on hand always.

Locked my keys in the car once at clinicals and really needed to rush home afterwards to polish off the final draft of a care plan due the next day. Couldn't get the car open so there I was waiting for AAA. (After that I purchased a magnetic hide a key box and kept a key outside my car). May not be the safest thing in todays world but it was what I needed at the time.

Our school allowed you to tape the lectures. (Check with your school as many schools do not allow you to record nursing classes) I purchased a digital recorder and listened to the lecture any time I was in the car. It had excellent sound quality and they come in different number of hours you can record on them. I don't know if they will hold the whole semester but some have download capability so you could save the lecture to computer in case you wanted to go back to check something at a later date. (It uses a couple small batteries - I bought a 12 pack and put them in my backpack - didn't want to be without batteries).

I am not a morning person so I kept bananas, apples and bagels or breakfast bars in a big bowl to grab on the go out the door in the morning. As well I usually kept a container of soup to go and a soda or bottle of water in my car for those days when I was short on money or time for lunch. (Some in our class snickered at students for taping lecture. However the ones who did tape lecture were getting better grades and always knew what the instructor said about when assignments were due etc.)

Caffeine and Allnighters.

1st semester we had fundamentals and clincals M-Th and then we had our health assessment class 1st thing Friday Morning. With my work and school schedule invariably for me Thursday night would come and I had not even begun reading or studying for health assessment class. I spent many Thursday nights at the allnight diner with a good cup of coffee and reading my health assessment book. Everybody's circumstances are different so it may not be like this for everybody.

[peytonsmom]

I set aside, all work around the house, until the weekend, and if it could not get done in a couple hours one weekend day then it didn't get done

I'll second that!! My house looks like a bomb went off right now. It's seriously embarrassing and horrible. More than a few times already this semester we have run out of clean laundry and dishes. I work FT and go to school during the week and then have clinicals 7-1:30 e/o weekend sat and sun...NOT a lot of cleaning time there!

Dh and I do what we can w/ the time we have but everyone has been notified to expect my house to be a public health concern until December 2011.

I'm also slightly embarrassed to say that both local pizza places know our address by heart. They see our name on caller ID and don't even ask where we live. :imbar: But when you get home at 9:00 at night and still have a few hours of homework left to do you're not thinking about cooking!