Careers: Vet Nurse vs Early Childhood

Is anyone in either of these fields?

Currently i am qualified and work as a chef but its really not great with a small child - in fact its almost impossible. I am overqualified to work as a cook in a cafe only open during the day.

I am seeking a career that is a bit more child friendly (ie. work normal hours!) and have narrowed it down to the two options above!

If you work in either capacity i'd be interested to hear about your job, if you like it, if its hard to get work, if the study was a pain, if it works in well with your family...etc etc.

Please and Thanks

I think you will need to go and spend some time doing both to see what would suit you. I've done some vet nursing (though I'm not qualified) and I could never do it as a career but thats just me. It just seemed like a lot of cleaning up after the vets. There is weekend work involved in most places as well - whether or not that bothers you not sure.

Early childhood the hours will depend on what kinda place you work at. Kindy would be regular suitable kiddy hours but some daycares are open very early until about 6pm.

What is it with vet nursing? Everyone seems to think it's a great idea until they actually start the training! You get paid very little for doing all the jobs that the vet doesn't want to do plus there's nowhere else to go from there, not my idea of a fun job! Why not train to be an actual vet?

I can shed some light on vet nursing. I am a qualified vn, pay is crap but it is slowly improving. Job entails lots of cleaning, giving injections, monitoring anaesthetics, intensive care of sick animals, holding/restraining animals for vet, assisting with euthanasia, sterilising instruments, setting up and maintaining iv drips, taking and exposing x-rays, customer service. There is a lot involved, but it is rewarding. It is a job you do for the love of animals. It depends a lot on the clinic your in how good a job it is for a Mum. Where I was before and while pregnant was crap for Mums, but lots of places are much better. I loved the work, hated the workplace. Due to crap pay it is not worth me going back to work, we'd end up worse off with childcare costs. It is hard to find clinics who want "shadowers", they do kind of just get in the way. It is a job where you need to be calm in high stress life and death situations, be unfazed by gore, be able to put up with anal or stressy vets (as most are!), and be able to deal with some of the idiots who own animals.

Don't get me wrong it's a great job, but there is more to it than most people think and it's not remotely glamorous. You regularly get peed on, pooed on, vomited on, and less regularly bitten. Twice in a year I had to go on ab's for cat bites :(

Childcare to me would be the better option to fit with motherhood, in home childcare can be quite good money and means no childcare costs, days off with sick kids, very little stress like working outside the home. I have some ece training and am going to do in home childcare once my baby is a bit older. With childcare you prob could shadow in a centre, or at least discuss exactly what they do (more than just play with kids!)

Other thing with vet nursing, jobs can be hard to come by, particularly if you're inflexible with hours. Most clinics are open till 7pm and lots now are 7 days a week.You also never get out at 7pm, and need to arrive before opening to check hospital patients. There is also lots of things you can't do while pregnant if you thought you might have more kids still.

Wow, that went on a bit!! LOL, sorry.

Just wondering, given people have said both those options pay pretty rubbish - which makes me wonder if its worth the time, effort and cost of retraining - if you would be better off working as a cook for a cafe during the day, as it probably pays about the same? Does being over-qualified preclude you from those jobs, or you just aren't interested in them? This is totally just a question out of curiousity, not a judgement at all!

Bowie- i'm an EC teacher. I have been teaching for 6 years and think it's a wonderful career to have with young children. I'm about to go back to work 2 days a week. The hours can be very flexible and you don't need to work fulltime. I think the pay is ok i'm on more than $25 an hour!!!. There is great on the job training that lots of my friends have done with children, although if you already have a degree you will be able to do a graduate diploma in ECE this should take 1 and half years max!! You should look into ECE more especially if you have a primary training.... but thats just my thoughts.... if you have any other questions PM

Just a thought, why dont you look at cooking in a child care center? You would be able to bring the skills you currently have... with daytime hours (Usually 6.5 hours or less a day) and then you would get an inside view and see if you thought it might be for you.

I'm an ECE teacher, and also think the pay isnt that bad.
I dont know where you are in New Zealand - but unqualified (Auckland)you are looking at 13-17 an hour for early childhood, and then 22-27 for qualified, then more if you are head teacher/supervisor etc. But then again, you have to weigh up the cost of training for 3 years... and if it is truley a career choice you want to make. If it's really just for the next 5 years or so till bubs is bigger, then you have to look into is it worthwhile.

ECE opening hours could be anywhere between 7am and 6pm. So not exactly 9-5. I'm not sure if we've reached pay parity yet with primary teachers, but if you have a degree the pay is pretty decent, especially after a few years. With a diploma though, the pay isn't so good.
The job can be great, but depends a lot on your employer (I'm pretty lucky). It is very exhausting work though, because almost all your work hours are contact hours (i.e. hours with the children, with maybe 2 hrs non-contact for admin per week). Plus unless you work in Kindy (those jobs are hard to get), you won't have school holidays either. I switched to working pt after I had my daughter, I couldn't have done it ft, with her waking so much at night.

Good luck with your decision.

just my 2 cents worth on childcare / ece part. If you work for say a daycare / childcare place you can place your child in there and you get at least 50% off the daily / weekly rate (all depends on how many hours you do in a week). Most companies do that anyway. I used to work in a daycare.

I worked in dc briefly as unqual staff, also as a vet nurse (also no quals). I wouldn't go back to either. Lol, sorry. My vet nurse experience was ok, yes you are the vet's dogsbody, if you're in a larger clinic you don't have to do reception duties as they'll have a separate receptionist/retail. I left because I couldn't cope with emotional (sad &/or angry) people who's pet had died, & having to help euthanise animals who were lovely & healthy but unwanted. I found it too stressful, =(.