How many hours of sleep did you get a night when you were in nursing school?

Nursing school is demanding. Students often report they are struggling with sleep due to the heavy course load, clinical placements, and studying requirements.

My friend says she only gets about 4-5 hours of sleep a night while in NS. I can't function without a minimum of 6-7 hours of sleep and am starting to get nervous and think that maybe I should start training my body to get less sleep (if thats even possible for me).

Have you experienced this while in nursing school? How many hours of sleep did you get per night?

[JulieCVICURN, BSN, RN]

I gotta say BRAVO!! I'm impressed girl!! Being that I'm new to the nursing school game, and am learning alot already, can you give any pointers to us newbs? I wanna be able to play Wii at the end of the day, lol. Right now I am up at 5:30 to get myself and the kids fed and ready, and deliver the kids to their schools. We leave the house at 7 am. When I get out of class I head straight home and have 1 hour to eat lunch at home and straighten or do a couple chores before pickin up my son at 2 and then over to get in carpool line where I chat with my son about his day and then read or review for the next 30 mins. I head back home if I have no errands and get the kids a snack and do their homework. Then I go right into preping for dinner and preparing things for the next morning and any chores that need to be started or done or finished. We do dinner then we do baths and clean up the dinner mess. After that, about 7ish, I start my homework. That lasts until I stop and take a little time for ME! Then I go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. Except for Wedns cause I have church....that's a whole different scenario.

Yeah, this is where the supportive husband comes in. He was more than happy to take care of things like getting the kids off to school, making dinner, making sure they were occupied and didn't disturb me when I was trying to study. He also was completely flexible about letting me go out to meet with friends to study the night before tests. So I guess the key is to have a great support system, and it doesn't hurt to be a really, really fast reader with a good memory.

[Ciale]

8 hours. 11p-7a. My brain shuts down around 10:30 so the last half hour of the night is a real struggle to retain info..unless it's something really interesting. Past 11, it's all jello. :)

[runkaterun]

there is NO way i could function on an hour of sleep. today is my first day so i guess i'll see how i fair. right now i normally get 6-8 hours. i don't work, live at home and have no kids.....so as long as i can manage my time i should be ok. i'm a little nervous, i'm getting ready to leave for class

[Ella26, BSN, RN]

before clinicals i was getting full 8 hrs, during clinics if it was a day that i did clinics from 7-3pm then work 4-8pm then i got a couple, b/c i would have to go to the hosp after 8 pm get pt info spend 2 hrs writing most of info at hops then come and write everything on our med sheet sometimes i would have 2 pts to do this for. And they both had 40 meds and we have to write everything out so on these nights i would get like 3 hrs of sleep it was pure hell . luckily it was only like 2 days a week for 8 weeks. I worked full time went to school full time. got a hubby but no kids. he is in school too so he understood, not for nursing though.

[Almostnurse88]

just about 13 hours

[frumpter]

During the week I average 6-7 hours. I catch up on the weekends and get 8-9 hours.

[greenfaery]

It also depends on the nursing program you are in. My program has a reputation for being pretty hardcore, and most students do not get more than 3 hours of sleep the night before clinicals because we have that much paperwork to do the night before. However, it is my understanding that most nursing programs are not quite as brutal with the paperwork (at least in the surrounding nursing schools).

[tothepointeLVN, LVN]

I averaged about 6hours. I tried to be in bed by 11pm for a 4:30/5:00am alarm. I always prefer to get up a little earlier than I need to so I have plenty of time in the morning to eat, check email etc

[2bnurseforce1]

I work full time so when I get off at 10pm, I try and study a little and then go to bed. I normally get about 6 hrs a night.

[9livesRN, BSN, RN]

get home at 1 am from work, am up at 530 to go to school, or up at 4.40 to go to clinicals!

sunday is my "day off" i only work that day, and i wake up at 6.50 and get home at 6 pm, drink 2 beers, and go to sleep mmmmmmmm for almost 12 hours!!!

isn't that sad? the highlight of my week for the past 104 weeks has been a 12 hour sleep!

that is when i dont watch iron chef!

[DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN]

About 5 hours max.

Normally I sleep like a baby and right now I wake up 3 hours early and cannot get back to sleep. I have such a lot going on with my family right now -- nothing to do with nursing school.

[~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN]

I aimed for 8-9 hours first semester. During winter break I let myself get back onto my night owl cycle and haven't been getting near enough sleep. I am trying hard to get back into my previous habits though. My husband is working out of town until May and I always stay up later when he is away. I have found that the extra hour of sleep is far more beneficial then the extra hour of studying.