Night time fun

[HannasMom]

I work the night shift as a LTC charge nurse. I discovered I love working the night shift, as long as I keep the night shift schedule on my days off. If I try to stay awake during the day, on my days off, I become impossible to live with.:angryfire LOL.

If you work the night shift do you sleep during the day on your days off and stay awake at night, like I do or do you go back to night time sleeping and stay awake during the day?

How do you spend the night while family is sleeping? I have craft hobbies I like to work on. Lately I have developed a love for Mosaics and have almost completed a mosiac table. I also love to watch missed TV programs on my computer, cook, bake, knit, crochet, or make jewelry out of polymer clay.

If my husband has to get up really early,like 3am to go to work, I usually make breakfast for him and we have a chance then to eat together. Otherwise, my nights off are quite, and occasionally alittle lonely. But I love night shift and don't want to go back to days.

How about you?

[NurseCard, ADN]

I work five nights a week. On my day off after working all night, I will usually come home, play with my daughter a little and make her breakfast, then I will lay down for about five hours, get up around 3pm, and then go back to bed that night and sleep all night. If I'm off again the next day, I will have a "normal" schedule, except I might take a small nap in the afternoon.

My sleepy schedule is about to make a radical change, as my husband is going to be working all day shifts and we don't use day care (yet). So I'll come home, check email, then make the girl some breakfast when she wakes up, then maybe let her have a couple of hours of TV time while I perhaps grab a quick nap, or do something else like clean. Then we'll turn off the TV and have some sort of activity time for an hour or two. Then lunch about 12:30. Then perhaps "arts and crafts" time for an hour or so, where we'll draw or paint or play with Play Doh or whatever. Then just chill or do some reading for a little while. Then Daddy gets home around three pm or so, and mommy goes to bed.

Why yes, it IS gonna suck. =) For quite some time. I'm thinking about looking around for affordable day care for my daughter, as she is almost four and really has not consistently been around other kids since she was born, so it's something she really needs anyway.

[Justhere, BSN, RN]

I work 3 twelves in a week usually like work Mon, Tues off Wed,Thur, Frid then work Sat, Sun, off Mon, Tues, work Wed, Thur, then off Fri, Sat & Sun. So I go home on my first day off and sleep until about 12, then up, I'll go to bed when hubby does around 8:30 but I stay up until midnight watching tv, then then I get up at 0600 get kids ready and off to school, kiss hubby bye for work then go back to bed until about 1000 and get up and go to bed at 2200 for that night, then same routine as the day before but I try to sleep til 1200 on the day I go back to work. Once I am up and going I can't seem to lay back down and take a nap, but I can sleep in late.

[clemmm78, RN]

I do 8-hour nights, usually about three a week now. I try to have as regular a schedule as possible and that is 3 nights on, 2 off, 3 on 6 off. Sometimes, with a fill-in, like I'm doing this week, I'll have only one night off between nights. Those one-nighters, I won't revert to a day schedule, there's no point. But for the six off, I will sleep at night.

If I'm up all night, I'll quilt, read, watch tv, stuff like that.

[Jelli_Belli]

When I first started working nights, before I started this school semester, I tried to do the whole staying on the same schedule thing. It did make me feel better physically to stay the same because I get nausea when I switch back and forth, but man, I found myself missing my husband so bad! I would actually CRAVE sleeping by him, as crazy as that sounds.

Now that I have school days during the week and I work nights on the weekend I have to switch back and forth. Mostly I feel like a zombie when I work anyway. I look forward to going to school because I actually get to feel human for awhile.

[all4schwa]

I come home from the last shift I work and sleep until 11 then I am up. I go to bed around 1am or so that night and get up the next morning. When it is time to go back to work I usually get up around 8-9 that am and then go back to sleep around noon until 5. Then I am at work for 7pm and start all over again. Because I work 3 12s it is not so hard to flip back around to a "normal" life as long as I am not on one off one etc. this I can not do.

this is exactly what i do, on the day i go back to work i try to get a lot done in the morning (like cooking food for lunches at work) and then hit the hay from 1-5. I'm very protective of my sleep during this time!!