Help on fixing my strange sleeping schedule? (Night shift nurse)

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · Dec 2, 2018

I'm guessing it is something in the environment. Are you sleeping in a fully-darkened room? White noise? Heat vent closed? (the furnace warming up the house in the morning roasts me sometimes and wakes me up this time of year)

NewgradMJ · Dec 9, 2018

I am also having the same issues. I started working nights (7p-7a) 2 months ago and the first few weeks I was doing okay however now I am not able to sleep on my nights off, I stay up all night until the sun comes up. I fall asleep sometime around 7-8am and I sleep into the afternoon, it's really affecting my personal life and is very frustrating because I can't do anything during the day Bc I'm catching up on aleep. On the days that I work I usually have no problem sleeping when I get off in the morning but I do not want to be up all night on my days off, anyone have any suggestions? I have thought about leaving my job due to this. I have tried melatonin and Benadryl it makes me drowsy but doesn't keep me asleep.

**NICU Guy, BSN, RN** · Dec 9, 2018

You need a relatively similar sleep time for your days off as for your work days. When I worked nights, I went to sleep at 8 am on my work days and around 6 am on my off days. You are trying to go to bed 4 hrs ahead of your normal work bedtime. It would be similar to a day shift person going to bed at 10 pm during their work week and then 6 pm on the weekend. They may be tired at 6 pm but their body thinks they just needed a nap to get them through to bed time.

Leader25, ASN, BSN, RN · Feb 1, 2019

Managing sleep during the day is really an art.The more you struggle with it the worse it gets,Taking sleep aids is the worst thing you can do.When I woke from my usual broken day sleep the jammies stayed on and I relaxed until I felt drowsy again for another nap,I was always tired.On my day off it was yeah I can sleep like a normal person but woke anyway at 4 am (the time I would have coffee at work) to have a bowel movement, then back to bed and a little more sleep.Put on Louise Hay evening meditation on U tube or headset,you will be more relaxed,dont fight it,go with the flow.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 1, 2019

On 12/2/2018 at 6:22 AM, Dani95rn said:
Hi everyone I just started working nights a couple of months ago. My sleeping schedule was adjusting fine however now I feel like I fell into another sleep pattern I can't seem to fix and I don't know how it happened. After work I have no trouble falling asleep and staying asleep when I get home around 8-830 am. The problem is on days off. I will go to bed late let's say 3:30-4 am and will always wake up at 6-6:30 am regardless of how tired I feel when I went to bed. I have no idea why that time. I then won't be tired again until mid afternoon where I then catch about an additional 3-4 hours of sleep. All I want on my days off is to sleep past 6 am atleast until 9. Everything is so messed up. It's starting to really frustrate me and starting to effect my life and day to day activities. Any advice on how to fix this??? p.s. melatonin isn't really working for me. Switching to days isn't an option at this time.

This same thing happened to me, and the culprit was an old digital watch of my husband's. He had set it to alarm every morning at 6, then lost it. The strap was broken, and it was under the bed, at the head. I don't clean under my bed as often as I should . . . .

As a long-time night shifter, I would suggest seeing your PCP about a prescription for Ambien or something to help you sleep. You don't have to take it every night -- I only took it after I'd had trouble sleeping for 2 or 3 days in a row.