Crazy schedule proposal

[SaraO'Hara]

When I was transferred to my building last month, the DON proposed that I eventually work two day shifts and one night shift per week. I reluctantly said yes at the time. A few days ago, I attempted to tell her that it would not work (could it really work for ANYBODY?). She halfway brushed me off and we came to a reluctant (on my part) compromise. I left another message on her voicemail today, telling her that I am very sorry, and that I hope it doesn't leave her in any kind of lurch, but that switching from day to night and back constantly WILL NOT WORK.

What do I do? I don't want to be seen as a flaky newbie, but I wouldn't feel safe working with no sleep. I also want to start working on RN prereqs in January - I was supposed to start in AUGUST, but my old building switched me to nights right at the start of the semester.

Argh

[pielęgniarka, RN]

I worked a combo of nights and days before. I was nervous but got used to it (cat naps before shift and coffee) I did it for almost a year. Be assertive, make an appt to sit down with the DON and the scheduler and see what does work for you. Stay firm if you don't want to work the nights. Have them write up a document with your hour block and sign it, whatever it ends up being.

[thebirdgirl]

That's pretty much my schedule (by choice) and it works well for me. I might do Saturday and Sunday day, then Monday, Tuesday night. I always do my days before my nights and I don't have too much of a problem. I've tried clumping my days/nights together and just can't catch up on my sleep. You would have to try it to see if it works, I've been doing it for almost 2 years without a problem but some people just can't make it work.

Good luck!

[Sue7573]

I do three 12's 7a -7p on sat and sun and then 7p-7a on mon. Most of the time I sleep untill noon or later on monday, on purpose. My husband gets the kids on the bus monday morning.

I am wore out by about 5a on tuesday morning but I make it and I sleep until the kids get home tuesday afternoon. Then I go back to bed when they do on Tues night. It works pretty good.

But I have asked if they can take me down to 7-3 on weekends and just add another shift. I don't know if they will or not they were not acting to happy about the request. But if you can't do it you can't and make sure they know that and while you are in school it is going to be hard if not impossible to do that change in shifts.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

Working nights alone can play havoc on your biorhythms (I'm a night shifter); I can't imagine swinging back and forth like that in a single week, every week. It's one thing if I switch on over to a daytime schedule on my time off, now and then, but there's no way I'd do the schedule your talking about. I guess anything CAN work; it's just a matter of whether you want to deal with it.

[SaraO'Hara]

Well, she called back, and was very understanding, so we'll work something out.

[cherrybreeze, ADN, RN]

That would be tough; I did swing like that for a year and it killed me. I worked 3 12's a week, nights during the week and days on the weekend. Constant switching. I got used to it in terms of being able to, but it was burning me out. NO one else with a rotating position switched THAT much (it is usually a few WEEKS on one shift before switching). I managed a year and then said I couldn't do it anymore, and went to straight nights.

[mpccrn, BSN, RN]

i did that schedule when i started a long time ago. hated it and haven't slept well since.