L&D position, nights... can i survive??!!??!?

Nurses General Nursing

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i am currently working in med/surg, for the past 18 months, my first RN job. it's my dream to go into L&D, possibly for a midwifery track. the current opening is FT nights 3 12s. i'm on days and although i'm excited about L&D, i am nervous about the switch since i have 2 boys at home, 3 and 7.

tell me i could survive nights!! any good pointers??? anything? i really think OB is my calling. i just need to survive the schedule...

:redbeathe:nurse:

thanks!

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

I wish I could tell you. I am training in OB on days right now but as soon as my orientation is over I am booted to nights. I did a NOC preceptorship over the summer and winter. It was really hard, I never really got it down but it was only 300 hours. I got a Rx for Lunesta and will be buying room darkening sheets, possibly a white noise type machine that makes different sounds to drowned out daytime sounds. Stop drinking at 3-4 AM so you do not have to get up a million times to pee...thing its hard falling back to sleep at night? Imagine getting up to pee from a dark room and walking in the hall and getting blinded...I am hoping we get our house before I go to nights so I can put a dark sheet in the hallway so it is dark from the bedroom to the bathroom...also if you can schedule your nights 3 in a row. I hate coffee but I am going to have to learn to like it....

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Specializes in Ortho, Case Management, blabla.

I flipflop days and nights (I work both shifts). After a nightshift, if I don't have to work the next day I only sleep for a few hours. Wake up around one or one thirty. Then I have a regular day, go to bed around 10 or 11p. Set my alarm so I only sleep for eight or nine hours. The day after that everything is cool. Its really just about adjusting your sleep schedule properly. I know some people can't do it but it doesn't really bother me. I also find it very easy to stay awake so I don't really do anything special the day before working a night shift. Coffee can actually be kind of a bad thing for me because there's always a rebound effect, when I hit a certain threshhold amount of coffee drunk I actually feel more tired and less focused. I've found that taking multivitamins is almost as effective as drinking a cup of coffee. Also being in good health in general, eating a low-carb protein rich diet, and getting lots of exercise or physical activity during the day time on my off days seems to pep me up a lot on workdays.

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I work nights in L&D and love it. But I don't have any kids, so I don't have really good advice about dealing with kids and nights. Usually night shift tends to work well with kids. Your older one will be at school right? Are you going to have a babysitter, day care, or family take care of your younger one while you are sleeping? Night shift I would think would be really hard if you had to be up all day with a 3 yr old. But if your kids are away, you can sleep well during the day, be up when they come home, fix dinner, do homework and make it to work on time.

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Specializes in L&D,surgery,med/surg,ER,alzheimers.

I worked L&D nights in the past and LOVED it. It was relaxed in that the brass was gone and some shifts there was little to do but sit with laboring moms and chart. Other nights it would be 6 back to back emergency c-sections. You just never knew. It was really a nice atmosphere though and I hated day shift, too busy with all the extra people hanging around.

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