First night shift

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Feb 10, 2004

Nights rock, you can work all night and golf in the morning, cant work all day and golf at night.

Makes sense to me anyway

FORE

KimRN03 · Feb 10, 2004

I loved the Noc shift!! I was hired as a nurse on Day/Eve rotation, but given the chance I would jump at a all Noc position. If you can sleep during the day you will be fine. I loved the atmosphere at Noc. A lot quieter and not many ancillary staff around buggin' ya. Enjoy!

kyti · Feb 10, 2004

when I worked nights I had no problem sleeping but when I woke up I always still felt tired, like someone beat me up while I was sleeping. Afternoons are great if you have no children. Go out after work and sleep in the next day. Now I work days but my body still runs on 3-11 time. unfortunatly my life does not :crying2:

BarbPick · Feb 10, 2004

Boy... I guess I survived my first night shift. I figured I would be ready to crash at about 3am.. But I was fine until after 8am and I was driving home, that is the first time that I felt sleepy... Hopefully night shift will agree with me.. Only thing that stinks is I woke up at 3pm wide awake, and that is only giving me about 5hrs of sleep... I think I should probably try to lay back down for a couple more hours at least.. :)
Anyone else new at night shift??

Not new, actually old. Five hours is not bad. That is about the amount of sleep that people who work twelve hour shifts sleep, turn around and go back. as the words to the song go " I love the night life, I like to boogie"

Shed13911 · Feb 11, 2004

Nurs2b:

Congratulations on passing boards!! Welcome to being a full fledge nurse now. I hope you enjoy nights and it works for you. I have done both but my body never adjusted to sleeping during the day. I always was tired and cranky on nights. Good luck to you and again, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

nekhismom · Feb 11, 2004

I will do my first night shift Thursday. I'm naturally a night person, so I hope it goes well. I've been doing hospital orientation yesterday and today, and will tomorrow also, and I have felt SOOOO sleepy all day long. I guess I will work out well on nights! Hope it goes well for you too.

andi2634 · Feb 12, 2004

I started on nights around the beginning of November, after working days for my first 3 months of orientation. I'm definitely more of a night person- but it was a hard transition after having to up during the day. There are some days that I have no trouble sleeping- and get 7 or 8 hours and days when I can't fall asleep till noon and I'm up again at 3 or 4pm. Turn off the phone, try not to eat a big meal right before you go to sleep- and the best advice someone gave me- know that you will be completley obsessed with sleep for the first few months- and that's OK- your body needs to adjust to a totally new cycle. My family and friends are so sick of me always talking about how much or how little sleep I got. But now that I'm getting used to it I don't know if I ever want to work days. I work in an ICU and while nights are still busy- it's not usually as hectic as days-there aren't a million people taking the chart, we usually don't have to travel to tests- and I feel like I'm learning to be more independent by working on nights we don't have as many resources at night- we have to wake someone up with a problem. I'm lucky- I have great nurses with tons of experience to help me- find people on your shift you can trust and who are patient and like to teach. Good luck!

Andi

nursemary9, BSN, RN · Feb 12, 2004

Hi

I have worked nights for the last 27 yrs. I LOVE IT!! I would never work days in a hospital again!! TOO CRAZY!!

For the last 10 yrs. or so I had worked Home Care during the day. I would get to sleep about 3 PM. I recently quit the 2nd job, but I still stay up in the day time & go to sleep at about 3 PM. I get up at 9:30PM. This has always been plenty sleep for me.

SURFnNURSE · Mar 25, 2004

I have been working nights for 2 years now and i love it. it gets some getting used to but once you are, its amazing how you can keep going strong with not much sleep. good luck working night shift

nekhismom · Mar 25, 2004

Well, I love nights!! I just have a hard time flipping back to a day schedule on my days off. I did find that when I didn't get at least 8 hours of sleep, that I was EXTREMELY disoriented. But it passed, and things are much better. I LOVE NIGHTS!!!

teeituptom, BSN, RN · Mar 25, 2004

Night shifters rule

They do what days shifters cant or wont

days gets busy and all these people can come out of their offices for a bit and help

Night people do it all themselves and usually are shorthanded