It’s 8:30 p.m., a half-hour past her bedtime, and two-year-old Alison Church wants another drink of water. Her father, Brian Church, sighs and goes into the kitchen to get the water. Alison should be asleep, and he should be studying.

Such is the dilemma for a lot of Iowa State students who have children. Finding time to study can be a major problem. Church, 25, is a sophomore in community health education. Between classes, while working two jobs and taking care of his children, he doesn’t have much time to study.

“I would like to spend an hour studying for every hour of class I have, but I don’t even spend half that,” he said.

About 24,000 students attend ISU. Of that, 12 percent are married, according to the Registrar’s Office. Statistics on how many students are parents are not kept.

Meanwhile, the busy days and nights of students who are parents continues to be a problem, sometimes hidden by the mainstream population of the university.

“I usually have other things that I feel are more important, or I get interrupted a lot,” said Kimberly Scott, 22, a senior in psychology. Scott has an 1l-month-old son, Tyler.

She said her stress level is higher than people who do not have children.

“I can’t just go home and relax or hang out with friends or study when I feel like it. Having a child takes 110 percent,” she said.

Mark Hickman, 33, a junior in food science and nutrition, has three children under age 10, and his wife Kim is pregnant. He said although he feels stress, he still has enough time to study between classes and on weekends.

However, Hickman said the university could do more to relieve the stress students with children have by providing more child care on campus.

“When we tried to get child care, the waiting list was unbelievably long,” he said.

Tracy Yetter, program coordinator at University Community Child Care, said the waiting list for the center is at least a year long.

“A lot of times it’s over a year before your name comes up, ” she said.

Yetter said the child care center can accommodate 59 children ages two months to five years, and 21 school-age children. The waiting list for people who want to bring their children to the center is about 180 names long.

There are no current plans to expand the facilities to accommodate more children. Students, then, are being forced to look elsewhere for child care.

Often this means they must drive their children to day care and then find a place to park on campus, another chore.

Richard Henderson, 26, a graduate student, has to allow 30 minutes to take his daughter, Alyssa, 4, to the home day care where she stays. Henderson said he has many late nights from trying to study after he has fixed dinner, cleans the house, entertains Alyssa and then puts her to bed.

Mark Coleman, 37, is a second-year senior in psychology and in his first semester at ISU.

“I was just overwhelmed my first month here,” he said.

Trying to find child care was especially difficult. Coleman said seminars on housing and child care for incoming students would have helped to relieve the stress he felt trying to tackle the issue on his own.

The university did offer a list of area child-care providers to Coleman and his wife Bonita, but the Coleman’s were surprised by the lack of options on the list.

“l think they could have a lot more facilities available on campus,” he said.

Back at the Church home, it is 8:45 p.m., and Alison is finally in bed for the night.

“If you have a stressful day at school, don’t take it out on your kids when you get home. If you spend quality time with them, they will actually help you relieve your stress,” Church said.