Does Night Shift get easier?

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I have been filling in 2 nights (Sun/Mon) on a night shift case in addition to working 30 hours per week day shift since the end of September. The case is somewhat different as the client is an adult and she is a real night owl. She stays up until 1-2am is Trach and Vent dependent and has no functional use of her extremities so care involves lots of suctioning and repositioning. Once she decides to go to bed, her routine care takes about 1 1/2 hour. So it is often 3-4am by the time she is in bed. Then she asks to be turned, suctioned, covered, uncovered about every 30-45 mins. I also do my charting and tidy her room. I try to relax and get some sleep as soon as I get home. I usually sleep from 8a-12noon. I constantly feel like I am in a state of brain fog and mentally fatigued. I don't think I will ever get used to night shift. Do you think that I have given it enough time to see if my body will adjust to being awake two nights per week? I am not sure I am cut out for this but since this is my first time doing nights wanted to know if I should have been able to adjust by now? it's been almost 5 months. While I enjoy the extra $, I am not sure if I can keep it up much longer. Would love advice/ input.

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Specializes in Peds PDN, Med-surg.

Do you take anything to help you sleep in the morning? You can look through some of the forums here and see all the different tips people use to help them sleep. I used to do full time nights in PDN for about 6 months and no, it never got easier. I found that it was just pure torture to be in a quiet, dark house bored out of my mind yet not be able to fall asleep. It sounds like your case keeps you busy at least! Now I work in a hospital on nights as well but I'm so exhausted after 13 hours that I just pass out no problem lol. Another thing that probably isn't helping you is working both day and night shifts in a week. Just a thought.

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Your biggest problem probably is mixing the two shifts. If you were working nights exclusively, you would have a better opportunity to establish a better routine for your body.

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.
Your biggest problem probably is mixing the two shifts. If you were working nights exclusively, you would have a better opportunity to establish a better routine for your body.

Caliotter is right. You can only "get used" to a shift if you are working that shift exclusively. Your body will always rebel against you if you keep burning the candle at both ends. Doing flip-flops with your schedule and going without a good night's sleep regularly is not only bad for your body, but it's also likely to take a toll on your mental acuity, which is crucial to have on the job.

Can you switch to all nights? If you work 6 nights a week you can get at least 8 hours of overtime and I can almost guarantee that your body and mind will love you for it.

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Thank you for your kind and thoughtful responses! I agree 100% and will be giving up the night shift. It just is not going to work for me for the exact reasons you all stated. Plus hubby really wants me home at night :)

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I think it depends. I've had no problems adjusting. I work 7p-7a most times, but on my nights off I go to sleep at a normal time and wake up just fine to enjoy my day light hours.

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Specializes in Pediatric Private Duty; Camp Nursing.
I think it depends. I've had no problems adjusting. I work 7p-7a most times but on my nights off I go to sleep at a normal time and wake up just fine to enjoy my day light hours.[/quote']

When I was a teenager (and then college student) I could pull all-nighters left and right like it weren't no thang! I particularly remember seeing Pink Floyd in '88 and getting back to my dorm at 4am, slept three hours, and went to my final exam bright as a daisy. Just today, I wanted to go in and watch my daughter give her oral report in school, and after my alarm woke me after 3 hours, I could not wake up enough to be coherent. My husband video recorded it w his phone for me!

So I think my point is, sleep loss tolerance can change w age!

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When I was a teenager (and then college student) I could pull all-nighters left and right like it weren't no thang! I particularly remember seeing Pink Floyd in '88 and getting back to my dorm at 4am, slept three hours, and went to my final exam bright as a daisy. Just today, I wanted to go in and watch my daughter give her oral report in school, and after my alarm woke me after 3 hours, I could not wake up enough to be coherent. My husband video recorded it w his phone for me!

So I think my point is, sleep loss tolerance can change w age!

I'm sure it can, but I'm a 31 year old single mother of two who LOVES sleep, but for some reason I've just been able to do this and it works well for me.

But honestly, I don't think age is everything... I work with 60 year olds who do the same thing. I think some people are just wired for it.... it doesn't hurt that I could sleep through a tornado. :p

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