I posted something related to this here 2 months ago back when I was considering switching from evening shift to night shift. I had ultimately decided to remain on evening until something in days opened up because I was concerned about long term health/sleep issues with nights.
Long story short, something in days opened up and I just started it this past week. And it was the. worst. week. ever. I was never really much of a morning person, which is why I stayed on evening shift for so long, but being that my wife is stuck working evening shift (like me) at her new job, I had no choice but to change my shift because we have 2 year old girl AND opposite days off.
This whole past week, I've gotten sick and have been having digestive problems. I've been waking up 5am to be at work 7am. It's been extremely hard on me. For one I hate going to bed at "grandma-esque" times like 9pm/10pm, I usually stay up to 1am, 2am and wake up 11am the next day. Meanwhile, all my daytime colleagues are congratulating me, saying i made a great choice and how days are good for people with families, etc. Meanwhile, the whole time I felt as if I was living in the twilight zone while trying to remain optimistic about it.
While it could be true that I might need a couple more weeks to adjust, I just don't know anymore. Now whenever my wife comes home at 1am, I'm in bed trying to fall asleep while she's in the living room relaxing to soothing music because she can stay up late. We used to do that together and now I feel left out.
So to summarize... I applied to transfer to nights 2 months ago, backed out before I started due to health/sleep concerns. Applied for day transfer, got it, now having doubts about it after the first week of doing it. I would love to stay on evenings where I've been for years now but that doesn't look like an option anymore due to the babysitting dilemma. Part of me regrets not sticking with night shift because it looks like I'm already having sleep/health problems with day shift anyway.
If I ask my RN supervisor about doing nights again if its still available, do you think she will be upset or turn down my request? She did say that my first 3 month of day shift is considered "probation" to see how I perform on it, I don't know if this situation applies to "performance" though.
