Love night shift when I'm at work, hate it on my days off. I'm torn!

Published

I have worked 12 hour night shifts in acute care for four years now. I enjoy the pace, the lack of administration presence, and supporting my patients when their families leave and the lights turn off. I cannot imagine working dayshift (at least at the facility where I currently am). However... I am a true morning person and am the most productive, and typically happier, when I have a predictable schedule and am able to plan my day. Working nights seems to throw me for a loop, half of the time I can't even tell you the date. I feel as though I am always bouncing between exhaustion during runs of 14+ hour shifts, and laziness when I have more than one night off because I crash so hard. Any advice or similar experiences? I am not ready to give up on night shift, and changing positions is not an option financially. As I am a fairly new RN, I also don't want to lose out on the learning experiences of working in acute care by moving to outpatient just yet. Thanks for the discussion friends. :nurse:

I can't advise you here but I work outpatient and I really want an inpatient experience. Unfortunately I know I would do terribly with a night shift schedule and it's hard to get a position that is all days or evenings at this point in my career. I feel stuck but in a different way. Best of luck to you.

Specializes in CGRN.

My feelings echo yours exactly! I love the night atmosphere, but I also struggle with the schedule. In my pre-nursing life, I worked early shifts for twenty years and I feel unable to shake my internal clock. I feel like a zombie all the time, always tired, never feel like doing anything and it's starting to wear on me.

Do you switch back to a dayshift schedule on your days off? My husband and I both work nights but, differ in our sleeping habits on our off days. He sticks to a nightshift schedule and stays up all night on his days off and I do the opposite and sleep at night, that works best for me and I feel better. On my first day off I'll take a nap in the day and then sleep that night and then the night before I go back to work I'll stay up later and sleep a little later in the day. Maybe switch your off day sleep schedule up and see if that helps?

Specializes in Home Health (PDN), Camp Nursing.

Play around with different sleep schedules until you find the best one. It's my opinion that there is no night shift schedule that you feel 100% on. It's varying degrees of feeling like crap. It can take up to six months for my body to really adjust even when I'm on my best schedule.

I do find that I do better with two shot naps during the day rather than trying to get one solid block of sleep. I don't keep to night shift on my days off, but I also do sleep catchup days where I sleep 10 or more hours, occasionally.

+ Join the Discussion