Day/Night rotating shifts

[Sailaway25]

I was just hired for a 36 hour day/night position. Two weeks on days and two weeks on nights. For those of you who work this schedule how do you deal with changing your schedule every two weeks, is it difficult? Do you have any tips for me?

Thank you!

[jammin246RN]

I see it no different then how night shift nurses normally work. Some tips.... The night before you go into your working night, stay up a bit later and force yourself to sleep until noon. Get 6 night shifts in a row if you can do it, that way you don't have to keep switching back and forth. It allows your body to adapt a bit to nights. Set a schedule on the nights you work from 9a-3p for sleep. Use aluminum foil to black out the windows. Turn off your cell phone and regular phone. When you get off your stent sleep 4-5 hours once you get home so like from 8a-1p and enjoy the rest of the day, go back to the day schedule. Let everyone that needs to know that you are sleeping between those hours... and if they call during your sleep you will get back to them at 2am when you are up. Do this twice, and they get the idea that people don't like to be woken up in the middle of their sleep.