Night shift and Sleeping

jaznia15 · Mar 23, 2011

Well I am so glad to hear that it is not hard to stay busy in a hospital setting. Every job I've ever worked in a nursing home, people slept on the job. I'm a night person myself although I must say I have had scares on the drive home. The hospital I am going to work in after I get my license is an hour commute, but I'm not above snoozing in the car for 30mins to an hour if I feel that tired. I have heard to many stories of nurses falling asleep on the way home in the car because the hospital has over 1400 employees, don't know how many work night shift, but there are a quite a few commuters.

Chin up · Mar 23, 2011

Well I am so glad to hear that it is not hard to stay busy in a hospital setting. Every job I've ever worked in a nursing home, people slept on the job. I'm a night person myself although I must say I have had scares on the drive home. The hospital I am going to work in after I get my license is an hour commute, but I'm not above snoozing in the car for 30mins to an hour if I feel that tired. I have heard to many stories of nurses falling asleep on the way home in the car because the hospital has over 1400 employees, don't know how many work night shift, but there are a quite a few commuters.

Yeah, my sister in law that has worked over 30 years night shift, has fallen asleep at the wheel about 4 or five times. She as been fortunate she was never seriously hurt and never hurt or killed someone. The worst thing that happened to her, was a 300 dollar bill from the city for downing a utility pole. She is still at it at the age of 68 and won't quit, says she loves it.

joanna73, BSN, RN · Mar 23, 2011

I don't sleep on nights. I'm too busy, and, as one RN, I have a responsibility to stay awake. I'm paid to work, not to sleep IMO.

carolmaccas66, BSN, RN · Mar 23, 2011

In Austalia if ur fulltime, you have to do nightshifts also - it is not negotiable in private or large public hospitals.

rnlately · Mar 23, 2011

Where I'm from, sleeping on the job is grounds to get booted. Besides, it's been my experience that just because it's night time doesn't mean that the patients will sleep. Many times we have chronic pain/nausea complaints and with prn's available q 2-3 hrs for different patients; there is no time to sleep; even if it were allowed. As far as how I deal with nights; I guess I'm a nocturnal person. For example, I return to work tomorrow at 1830; I will get up in the am to take my daughter to school, return home, and nap for about 2 hrs. I will be good until I knock off Thurs am. Then I will take daughter to school and be in bed by 0830, sleep till about 1400 and be rested enough for another 12 hr. I had no problem adjusting but for some people it will just take time.

R*Star*RN, BSN, RN · Mar 23, 2011

I currently work 12 hour nights. We have a "buddy" system, and many nurses choose to go to the sleeping lounge for an hour as their break. While the nurse is on break another nurse covers her patients. Personally I am a horrible nap taker. One time I did fall asleep at the desk, sitting upright in my chair, for about 15 minutes and my charge nurse woke me when one of my patients put their call light on.

julyemrn · Mar 23, 2011

For some, it may be hard ... but hey we need to work for what we are being paid for . :yawn:

backatit2 · Mar 23, 2011

i'm a CNA at a hospital right now and i work night shift. not only do i not have time to sleep - i don't have time to even think about sleeping! i literally can barely make it through my unpaid break without having to get up and do something because it stays so busy. i just sleep during the day like anyone else would sleep at night.

jnick31 · Mar 23, 2011

There have been more than a few times that my wife would be frantic when I got home because I needed to close my eyes in the car for a min and fell asleep before they were shut. 3 hrs later I was leaving the parking lot. oops.

hopefulwhoop · Mar 23, 2011

I work night shift and the only time I have a hard time staying awake is the first night back after being off for several days (>5 days). I don't drink coffee or soda. I don't like caffeine at all. On the rare occasion that I'm not busy, my coworkers do a great job of keeping each other up. Some people do sleep on their lunch break--I don't see anything wrong with that, as long as you're doing it in the break room and not in front of pts.

BrookeeLou_RN · Mar 23, 2011

I loved nights, stayed busy with L&D but after 3 yrs.. I started to vomit every night at 2:30am..Could not say I was really that tired, I kept warm, kept moving and mostly was busy..did not matter if I ate or drank or did neither... after about the 3rd week of this vomiting for 30 mins every night shift..charge nurse reported it to NM and she had slot to move me to days. But I disliked the hospital politics of days and left and went to homehealth.

Guess my body is just not cut out for nights.

EduardoLugo · Mar 23, 2011

This is a spinoff thread from the thread about the nurse getting caught sleeping. I have always wondered if everyone stays awake on night shift (RN Wise). I am a CNA (getting my BSN in May) and every NURSING HOME I have worked in, workers have slept between rounds mostly CNAs but some nurses (LPNs). I have a big fear that I will end up falling asleep during night shift in the hospital and was wondering what keeps night shift nurses up at night??? Is it an easy feat or does it require a bunch of coffee and willpower???

I want to work at night shift.. I hope not to fall asleep. :)