To think I can do this?

[DoTheDinosaurStomp]

I'm a single mum of a 2 year old boy. I'm a nurse but after receiving wonderful support from my own health visitor I'm keen to do a masters in public health (HV) and become a health visitor myself.

The issue is that I'm not sure if I can manage this at present. Ex only has our son EOW and can't do much more. I don't really have any other family who can help out, beyond the odd couple of hours here and there or the odd overnight.

The course would be at a uni an hour away, approx 1/2 days a week and placement would be around the same distance away, 3/4 days a week. Monday - Friday 9-5. I'd also have self directed study outside of this. I have my son in nursery 3 days a week at present, Wed-Fri and I'd be looking to increase his hours to full time.

My question is am I being unreasonable to think that I can manage a masters on top of working (placement) 3/4 days a week an hour away, single parent to a toddler, without much help? Has anyone done something similar and found it manageable?

I feel like I really need to do this for a lot of reasons. My ex upped and left my son and I when son was 2 months old, after a 12 year relationship and immediately got with another woman who he's subsequently had another baby with. I was left in an absolute mess, PND, struggling alone, living with my aunt in her spare room. To be honest, I felt worthless when he left. This would be a chance for me to get out of my rut, build a future for myself and my son and buy a house for us. In nursing, most of the work is shift work and hardly any community posts become available. Health visiting would be family friendly hours and much better pay than on the wards. It's also something that I think I'd be really passionate about.

Am I being daft to think that I can manage this at this moment in time or should I wait until my son is a little older?

I meant to add, the course will be full time, over 52 weeks with 7 weeks annual leave. So I'd only have 1 full year of this, which I'm hoping is doable.

You are currently, presumably, working shifts and can still manage. Masters will be more cognitive load but not necessarily the same commitment as working is currently. Clinical masters usually require 1000h placement so this is only 26 weeks throughout your course. And, I am pretty sure, you don't get weekend placement hours as a student.
If your son is in nursery full time and you don't have other work commitments, you may find that you actually have more time, not less to focus on your studies. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, you will have to do studying in the evenings after your son is in bed. But it is doable if you really want it to be.

I do currently work shifts but I'm on the nurse bank, so it's very flexible. I pick up short shifts that fit in with his nursery hours and I dont work every day ges at nursery, I sometimes take the odd day to myself. On one hand, I really appreciate this flexibility as I can spend time with my son, always there for nursery drop off/collection and we do things on our days off. It's pretty relaxed. But on the other hand, there's no chance of any career progression on the nurse bank or enough of a wage to allow me to get onto the property ladder.

I'm just mainly worried about spreading myself too thin, as I wasn't far off a breakdown when my ex left us, he really turned my life upside down for a long time. It's taken me a good while to get myself back to feeling somewhat normal and optimistic for our futures.

But breaking it down as you have, 26 weeks placement is manageable, even if it's tough going for those 26 weeks. I guess it's just going to be a case of being very, very organised and somewhat regimental with my time.

You'll be fine , just get a back up babysitter for emergencies/ sick days - you should have one anyway as a single parent

And they won't be 26 weeks all bunched up together either, I presume. They are usually split as 4+8+8+8, you get half a study day per week too (usually taken as one full day every two weeks).
You will need to get organised with your thesis. I aimed for 200 words a day + 1 reading and note-taking day per week and I more or less sailed through my masters with only one tiny breakdown towards the very end 😁
I still had one full day off every week and, if I finished my writing goal for the day, I would take the rest of the day off. Honestly, I had much more free time than I ever did working.

I have a couple but hate asking favours! I need to get over that though lol.

Yea that's right, two sets of placements throughout the year as opposed to all bunched into one. So slightly less intense I guess. Plus we can organise our own diaries during the second placement as we'll have our own caseload, under supervision.

My worry is also getting back in time to collect the little one from nursery. I think I'm just thinking of worst case scenarios, I think i just need to take the leap and see how I get on!