anyone in healthcare?
pugznploons
member
Wondering if there are any nurses or other health care workers that have a schedule that fluctuates each week. What are you doing for childcare? I am looking at potentially going PRN after baby is here, that way I can keep my foot in the door and go back FT in a year or so if the opportunity arises. We found one daycare center that has flexible scheduling, but with only 9 slots in the infant room I wonder how well they would really be able to accomodate a changing schedule (we would commit to 2 days a week minimum and pay that regardless of if I get shifts that week.) I think this kind of arrangement is pretty rare from the daycare centers I've spoken with. Our hospital no longer has a daycare center, so that's not an option unfortunately.
I haven't bothered calling in home providers yet as I know they don't want to talk to you until much later in pregnancy or on maternity leave, but I don't know how open they would be to a fluctuating schedule.
Gretchen Evie, born 7/8/2012 at 35w5d
Re: anyone in healthcare?
A friend in healthcare just went back to work and she is only working Saturdays and Sundays at the hospital. Longer shifts, but no daycare to worry about. And then she's home with baby all week.
I don't work in healthcare, I work in mental health though. I have a continuously changing schedule. The benefits are that I set my own schedule weekly, about 50% of my work I can do from home, and once LO arrives, we are going to try to arrange it around DH's schedule. He also has a changing schedule, though his are 11 hour shifts 5 days a week, where mine is dependent on the number of clients I see. Right now, I have 7 clients for a total of 26 hours weekly. Of that, I'm out of the house 2 full days and 1 half day a week. But, when I was horribly sick the 1st trimester, I instead went out of the house pretty much every day, but only for 2-3 hours at a time.
I work 3 days a week, and everywere I have checked will only consider me "part time" if I give them a set schedule every week so they can staff correctly. Since my work days are all over, I would have to pay for full time care (5 days a week) and only need them 3 days in order to secure a spot in the center. I would check with the centers and make sure you can have days that vary, it concerns me because if they have several part time people with schedules that vary- potentially can lead to understaffing.
I did find 1 center that would charge me only part time, BUT only because they had several open spots in the class. They told me IF the class filled I would then need set days or pay for full time to keep my position.
Lets just say we are not in a center, just too expensive and too much to figure out- gives me a headache!
I work two 12 hour shifts a week. My mom watches DS, but when I was pg we didn't know she would be available, so I started looking for chidcare. No daycare would do pt with an infant, never mind a fluctuating schedule. I interviewed a girl from sitter city. If I would have used her, she would have come to our house on the same two days a week ( her choosing with her class schedule) and my unit would have let me work those days ( and I work every third weekend, so we only would have needed. 6 days a month.
Most of my nursing friends either work nights with family/ friends to watch lo while they sleep, or have a nanny or in home Eco. GL if you actually can find a center near you. I would personally have done the coming to your house nanny if I had to.
We have a nanny. We hired her with the understanding that she had to be available essentially 5 days a week but would only have to work 3 of them. I have my schedule 1-2 mos in advance, so she is able to schedule things on my days off.
The trade off for her flexibility is that she gets FT pay but only works 3 days/wk. they are long days though (5am-4pm on 2 days, 5am-8pm on the other) so I'd say she earns it. Plus not a lot of nannies want a job where they have to arrive by 5am.
If you go back PRN, can you only request to work certain days?
After ML, I went back PRN 2 days at (at different places). I was able to request that I work W & F. I had DD in a daycare center. I paid for 2 days a week, even if I didn't work (i.e. cancelled or wasn't scheduled).
In my experience, large daycare centers that accept part-time babies can be flexible. I was always able to tweak my schedule (i.e. switch to another day in the week if I could pick up a shift when cancelled). It was rare the center couldn't accommodate the change. (I also didn't ask about them being flexible before DD started b/c I had no idea what I was doing about work before I went on ML).
I would start by asking your manager about going PRN and the likelihood you could work the same 2 days/week. And go from there. (I had an awesome manager who would make this work as long as you knew you were the first to be cancelled).
I wouldn't give back the pay and few hours worked during that first year but the instability did become tiring for me and I finally had to find a part-time position that better fit my life.
Both DH and I work in healthcare. I work PT 4 x 8 hour days, but my start time varies each day of the week. 2 days/week I work 7:30-3:30, then 11:00-7pm, then 12- 8pm. My DH works 12 hours shifts 7-7, in a 2 day 2 night four off rotation. We use a daycare centre which is open 6:30-6:30.
2-3 x a month our shifts line up so that he working on one of my late nights. When that happens we either try to change shifts with a co-worker, or my DH will take 1-2 hours of vacation (his work is way more flexible). It is a bit of a pain to coordinate but we know our schedule a year in advance so we just sit down with the calender and figure it out every 3 months. As per previous poster our centre's 12 hour days are way more accommodating then most In-home providers I spoke with. I know in some larger centres there are even 24 Day Care Centres which cater to shift workers. Good Luck.