Sleeping during nightshift!!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Critical Care, Home Health.

This is not my first night shift position and I am shocked at how many people at this hospital sleep during their shift. I'm not talking about nodding off for a couple minutes either. They are slumped over in chair, head on the desk drooling all over themselves (at the nurses station!). Their little slumber lasts 1-2 hours, some even sneak off and sleep in their vehicles for this amount time. During this time almost everybody is busy, and even busier because they're pick up their slack.

I have mentioned this to several of the CN's, and don't get much of a response. It just some how seems accepted?!? This just can't be normal?

It's so frustrating, I run my butt off and barely manage to get breaks, eat while chart etc... and there they are: snoozing in the corner.

Please tell me this is far from the norm where you work!

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Specializes in Emergency.

No it is far from the norm. And in fact in one state it is grounds for license revocation- North Carolina. Personally I dont care what one does on their lunch break ie if they go to their car and nap or what ever. But to literally sleep for an hour or two or longer, hell no. Sorry if management is turning a blind eye maybe the board of nursing or the agency that licenses hospitals in your state would be interested.

For what its worth this has been discussed at length previously as well just do a search.

Rj

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Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

Fortunately it is not the norm where I am, although I have seen it.

There is a difference between catnapping on your lunch break -- it's your break & they're not paying you for it -- as long as when you are working you are working.

We had a nurse just the other night sleep about half the night away. If it's an issue of me getting caught sleeping at work or calling in sick because I won't last the night, I will call in sick any day. Fortunately I have never had to do that but if it hit the fan, I would. I am in NC where that can lead to license revocation, as rjflyn said. No thanks.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Not the norm where i work. It'll get us fired.

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As a professional nurse you cannot sleep on work time. You can do anything you want on your break time. If you sleep more than about 3o minutes you will wake groggy and somewhat disoriented but if you sleep for 20-30 mins on your break you will feel refreshed.

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Specializes in CVICU, MICU, CCRN-CSC.

It is a terminatable offense where I work. I have taken naps at lunch though (only 30 min...I am paranoid). But then again you have the people that socialize or smoke (or whatever else) for that amount of time too. We had a nurse who would go to the "bathroom" for 1-2 hours everynight. Ofcourse, then you have the nurse who just dissappears for hours during the day...you have docs who can't find them, we don't lnow much about their patient (except they are coding)...Then we had a day nurse take naps on the sofa (during lunch) because she partied so much the night before (never had to pick up her slack except normal lunch watching). So, I guess it is all shift all the time. Slobbering sleeping at the nurses station would be an immediate termination (unless ofcourse they are buddies with the NM or charge...politics.)

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That is aboslutely ridiculous! That should be ground for termination and I can't believe your manager is allowing this to happen without so much as a slap on the wrist! What about if one of their patients goes downhill fast or heaven forbid, codes? Nurses need to be aware of what's going on with their patients throughout their shift.. sleeping (not on breaks) is downright neglectful.

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At my facility, we will nap on our break. If we have time we are allowed a full hour block, which is really our mealbreak plus our 2 15 minute breaks. We tell someone where we will be, and someone comes and gets us if we don't wake up in time.

According to a small article in this latest issue of nursing 2007 titled 'You snooze, you win', researchers have studied the effects of napping on performance, and the data supports a 40 minute nap at 3 AM as being beneficial to increased alertness and performance of nightshift workers.

We don't nap during our work time however, only on our break.

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At my facility it's allowed as long as the work has been done and there's at least one person awake, and the nap isn't more than an hour. If Nurse Nancy is asleep and her pt needs something, she's awakened to take care of it unless someone wants to help her out.

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Nighttime is my work time - not my sleep time. I sleep during the day so that I don't HAVE to take naps during my work time, and I've never seen anyone that works at my current facility do it either.

We all have plenty to do to keep us awake - and sometimes the night doesn't seem long enough.

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When I worked night shift, I had aides who took naps on their lunch time et would wake each other up so they were not late back to work. As their charge nurse, I did not mind as long as their nap was not over their alloted time. One night, I tried to because I did not get a lot of sleep so I thought I would get a nap in on my break but I was so paranoid that they would not wake me up or they would forget that I could not relax et sleep.

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Wow,

Tell me where you guys work so I can sign up! On my floor starting at 2300 we start the night running and we don't stop until we walk out the door, usually at 0800! None of us has time for a break, with call lights ablaze at all times, people attempting to get OOB by themselves, CP, SOB, PAIN, you blink your eyes and it's time to tape report. Then day shift comes in with three times the amount of staff, sitting on there behinds chit chatting until 0745 before they even start listening to report, Oh boy, I love my job!!

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