Love night shift when I'm at work, hate it on my days off. I'm torn!

[xtina15]

I have worked 12 hour night shifts in acute care for four years now. I enjoy the pace, the lack of administration presence, and supporting my patients when their families leave and the lights turn off. I cannot imagine working dayshift (at least at the facility where I currently am). However... I am a true morning person and am the most productive, and typically happier, when I have a predictable schedule and am able to plan my day. Working nights seems to throw me for a loop, half of the time I can't even tell you the date. I feel as though I am always bouncing between exhaustion during runs of 14+ hour shifts, and laziness when I have more than one night off because I crash so hard. Any advice or similar experiences? I am not ready to give up on night shift, and changing positions is not an option financially. As I am a fairly new RN, I also don't want to lose out on the learning experiences of working in acute care by moving to outpatient just yet. Thanks for the discussion friends.

[ottersloveoysters]

I can't advise you here but I work outpatient and I really want an inpatient experience. Unfortunately I know I would do terribly with a night shift schedule and it's hard to get a position that is all days or evenings at this point in my career. I feel stuck but in a different way. Best of luck to you.

[GIEndoRN, BSN, RN]

My feelings echo yours exactly! I love the night atmosphere, but I also struggle with the schedule. In my pre-nursing life, I worked early shifts for twenty years and I feel unable to shake my internal clock. I feel like a zombie all the time, always tired, never feel like doing anything and it's starting to wear on me.

[lindseylpn]

Do you switch back to a dayshift schedule on your days off? My husband and I both work nights but, differ in our sleeping habits on our off days. He sticks to a nightshift schedule and stays up all night on his days off and I do the opposite and sleep at night, that works best for me and I feel better. On my first day off I'll take a nap in the day and then sleep that night and then the night before I go back to work I'll stay up later and sleep a little later in the day. Maybe switch your off day sleep schedule up and see if that helps?

[Alex Egan, LPN, EMT-B]

Play around with different sleep schedules until you find the best one. It's my opinion that there is no night shift schedule that you feel 100% on. It's varying degrees of feeling like crap. It can take up to six months for my body to really adjust even when I'm on my best schedule.

I do find that I do better with two shot naps during the day rather than trying to get one solid block of sleep. I don't keep to night shift on my days off, but I also do sleep catchup days where I sleep 10 or more hours, occasionally.