Living like a vampire....

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in NICU, Post-partum.

I have been on night shift now for about, oh, 5 months or so.

I like the staff much better that works on nights versus days....so much more laid back. Fewer admissions, fewer discharges, more pay, tons of benefits.

My problem is that I come home and go to bed at 7 or 7:30, but every day, I am up at 11:30 or 12:00 and can't go back to sleep.

I worked 4 days straight like this and I didn't feel safe to work because I was so sleep deprived. I kept having to really stop and think about IV drugs I was giving to make sure sleep deprivation didn't alter my thinking and cause me to make a mistake.

I have tried to take some OTC sleeping meds to help during the day..but it seems like I am the Goldilocks of sleeping pills....if I take a whole one it knocks me out for too long to where I feel like I'm going to work drunk and if I take a 1/2 a pill, it doesn't seem to do any good.

Anyone have any suggestions????

Specializes in Emergency, Trauma, Critical Care.

I woulda say sleeping pills but since you said you tried some....

Did you try melatonin? It's a natural sleep aid, not as strong as some of the other stuff. And usually half a tab of Unisom works for me.

Benadryl?

I'm trying here. :confused:

Do you have the light blocked out in the windows of the room you sleep in? A fan going to block out outside noise? That tends to help too and made a huge difference for me. You "fake" it's night time.

That's usually what I do and it seems to work. I hope you find something that works for you.

I precepted at nights for one month and did pretty well. What was helpful to me was blacking out the windows in my bedroom during the day and not overdoing the caffeine during my shift. I drank one extra cup of green tea at around 2am and that coasted me through the rest of the night. I ate really healthy food during the shift... lots of little snacks. Tried to stay healthy on my days off and get plenty of exercise.

Room darkening curtains, sleep mask. Can you take a little nap later in the afternoon?

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

I agree with blackout blinds. When I worked nights, I would sleep in my son's bedroom which was in the basement. I would wrap black Hefty bags around the blinds to completely black out his room, and I'd turn on the ceiling fan, which made the room cooler (people generally sleep better in a cooler - not cold, but cooler room) and provided a low hum that helped block out background noise. Phone ringer off, of course.

Benadryl made me have to wake up to pee. You might consider 5mg Ambien, which is a fairly low dose and tends to wear off after about 6-8 hours. I never felt groggy after 8 hours.

Good luck! I've been on days for a year and am LOVING it. Sadly, I'll be going back to nights next month (moving, new job). I'm very sad. :(

Specializes in Med/Surg/Onc, LTAC.

Some of the things that keep me up... thinking of all the things I have to do when I wake up! Before I go to bed, or if I work a stretch of shifts in a row I make my supper for work before bed, get my scrubs out to wear that are ready to go... so all I have to do is get up, eat, workout, shower and get my stuff to go to work.

On top of the room darkening tip, fan in the window tips I use daily!

I started nights one month ago and think I have found my groove. I have one cup of coffee on the way in at 2200 and a cup of tea at 0230. That lasts me until 0600 without jazzing me up like the 0400 coffee was doing to me. I give report and go to the cafe, have an english muffin, and get a bottle water to go. Get in my car for the 45 min commute home. When I am within 15 min of home, I take a benadryl and melatonin cap. Pull into garage, strip off uniform in laundry room, get in nightgown and go to bed right away. I fall asleep within an hour and wake up by 4pm. I can't nap, so this works for me. Pick up son at 5p, make dinner, laundry, pay bills, etc, go back to work and do it again. Not a perfect way to live. I was doing 3-11 but days would go by when I would not see my 17 yr old son while he was awake. So until he graduates High School next year and goes off to college I will remain a vampire.

MauraRn

Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.
When I am within 15 min of home, I take a benadryl and melatonin cap.

My husband always suggested I do that (take my sleep aid while still driving home) and my thought was always - what if I get into an accident, or get a flat tire, or something else that prevented me from getting home before it kicked in?

Night shifters have to do whatever works for them... and sometimes switching to another shift is the only thing that works! Having said that, if you think about day shifters, they're not coming home and going to bed. Most 2nd shifters I know don't come home and go right to bed either.

When I get home in the morning, I stay up. I make breakfast, do household chores, watch a movie. Most of the time when I first get home I've got my second wind so it's not hard to stay up. I never take a sleeper of any kind. I also never get my 8 hours in a row. When I do go to bed, I get up after a few hours, putter around the house for a little while and then go back to bed. That second round of sleep is usually more doze than sleep but it works for me.

Specializes in orthopedics, telemetry, PCU.

Most of my tips have already been covered (and I got most of them from other threads here about this topic), but here's what works for me...

-get home around 7:30-8, immediately take a Benadryl, eat a bowl of cereal, wash my face, brush my teeth, get into bed and read for a while, with the goal of turning the lights off by 9am

-I have a fan in my room, and my window blacked out with a dark blanket hung over it

-I wake up around 5pm, take a shower, drink a cup of tea and get ready for work

-I drink tea or diet coke for the first 8 hours of my shift, but by 3am, switch to water. I usually eat my "dinner" between 2 and 3 am.

I think that your body can react differently to weird things, like how much and when you eat, so you might want to play around with your "dinner" and what you eat when you get home from work. I need a little time to decompress, but I know the computer/TV right before sleep can make it harder to get good sleep, so I read. I would also examine what it is that's waking you up around noon, and why you can't fall back asleep. Is it noise? light? stress? Maybe if you can identify the root of the problem it will help you figure out how to fix it.

Good luck!!

If I go to bed before 11 am, I am up at 1pm just like an alarm clock went off, and that's all the sleep I get that day :) So I try to stay up until at least noon, preferably 1pm, and then I will sleep at least 6 hours and sometimes clear up until 9:30. The more I can sleep after it gets dark, the better.

And just like the other folks, I black out my windows, have a fan going, and turn off the phone. I don't drink caffeine at all, since I metabolize stuff pretty weirdly on night shift.

I also find it very helpful to take a half hour nap on my lunch break. I read, I think it was in RN magazine, not sure though, but your med errors and driving errors are greatly decreased if you can manage to nap during your shift--no more than 25 minutes or so, or you will be too deeply asleep and have a hard time motivating again. Hope that helps!

Well, I worked nights for years and I'll never do it again. I was always very sleepy at night but couldn't sleep during the day. It was like being in hell, and, as I got older it just got worse. If you feel this bad after five months I doubt you'll ever be a natural night shifter. I advise switching to days when you can. The little bit of extra night diff isn't worth being that miserable.

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