New Nurse & New to Night Shift. Need Advice!

jlcole45 · Feb 16, 2010

Buy a bottle of melatonin, room darkening shades, and room darkening curtains, un plug the phone, tell your family, friends and neighbors if need be that you are working nights and they should not disturb you - unless its an emergency.

Night shift will be fine, ALL of us have had to do it, and in the old days no one was hired on days because that was reserved for the experienced nurses who had already done their time on nights. In many ways its great, fewer visitors, fewer docs, managers and other folks.

mamamerlee, LPN · Feb 16, 2010

Try to develop a schedule - when I worked a long stretch of nights, I tried to stay awake 'til noon, slept 'til 7 or 8 pm. After all, when we get home after day shifts, we do not usually go to bed right away! Whatever works for you, but keep it as consistent as possible.

Chico David, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2010

Everybody has different styles of what works. Nights are a while back for me, but tips that worked:

A spell of exercise when I got off work helped to convert a sort of "dirty" tired into a "clean" tired that let me get to sleep. I was a fan of trying to sleep early, soon after getting off work, so I could have the early evening with my wife, but others prefer to stay up a while and wake up just in time to go in. Whatever works for you.

earplugs, unplugging the phone, a "white noise" source like a fan to dampen any outside noises, good thick curtains so you can get the room really dark are all helpful.

Nights can be a good learning environment, since the pace usually is at least more predictable - you may work hard and be busy, but tend to have fewer interruptions - less of doctors, less of management, fewer visitors, less coming and going of patients. Hope for a good mentor - a nurse with more experience who is on nights because s/he likes it. And keep channels of communication open with your manager. You won't see much of him/her in the ordinary course of things, so make the effort to check in now and then and see how s/he thinks you are doing. And if a relationship with a co-worker or charge nurse is not going well, ask your manager for help early. Better to be proactive.

KalipsoRed · Feb 16, 2010

I'm a realitivly new nurse. I be in the nursing profession for two years come June. I started out on days because, like you, I really am a day time person. The advice above is mostly correct except I'm betting you are going to be working 12hr shifts, not 8. So get the melatonin and use it on the days you work. The days that you are off I know you will wish to wake up sooner so I would do something like this

Day before shift: Wake up at 11am or 12pm and stay up in till 0400ish then take melatonin and off to bed.

Day of shift: Wake up at 1500, do some mild streachy weightlifting sorts of exercise, take a shower and dress, watch a good TV show and watch dinner. (I'm single so you can substitute this with family time.) At 1800 leave for work (my shift started at 1900 and it takes me 1/2 hour to get to work).

Next morning getting off shift: Go to bed at 10am and wake up around 1600 repeat the previous activities if just a little shortened.

Continue pattern until you get days off then go home the morning of your first day off and go to bed as soon as you can, sleep 3 hours and get up. This way you will be able to wake up at a decent time the following day to do activities.

I'll be blunt. Nightshift is were I would rather work as a nurse. It is usually a close knit group, you can actually go at a pace where you can figure out what is going on...well most of the time, you get to spend actual time with the patients, you learn heck of a lot more than you could working days, and you don't have to deal with extrainous things like doctors, family, and management. Nightshift is were the real work gets done, because on days we are to busy chasing our tails to do anything productive. However, unless you are in the younger crowed (early to mid twenties) it really kills your personal life. Actually even if you are in the younger crowd it kills your personal life. It's harder for you to enjoy a family picnic because you will be tired. It's harder for you to exercise because you'll want to go at 0200. It's harder for you to go grocery shopping, go see the doctor, do errands...it just makes your social life really freaking hard.

I just switched back to day shift after working nights for the last year...I regret it every time I go to work. But as I said, I'm single and old (not really almost, 30). I want to date and that was almost impossible to do on nights. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Anyway, enjoy the night shift because it's the best. And of all the above advice the MOST important thing is to turn off your phone and buy some ear plugs.

medicrn13 · Feb 16, 2010

I love my nights. I had to do stretches of days and evenings for my orientation and honestly, I wouldn't go back if they paid me $50/hr.

The people on days are good, there's just too many interruptions and everything seems extremely task oriented. Evenings are slower, but still many interruptions and around here, most of the sloppy nurses inhabit 2nd shift.

As has been said, we are a very close knit group on nights, and we have to be because we have no one to back us up but each other. No aides, no docs sitting around, no unit clerks. Just us RNs. You'll do great, and you'll flourish on nights. The sleep schedule isn't so hard to get used to, just make sure you know if you want to stick with your night routine on your days off or if you want to switch to a day routine for a bit.

Good luck, and welcome to the party!

ladybugbaby161 · Feb 16, 2010

Hey welcome to ortho/med surg! I am like you - I am just so thankful to have a job. I have been a night nurse since August and have to say it has taken me this long to figure out what type of routine my body needs - not only on my days I have to work, but also on my days off.

PROS: you have a lot more autonomy. you have a close-knit group you work with and you have to help each other out or else it doesn't work. It's slower, not as many interruptions from ppl like PT or OT. For ortho, a lot of the pts actually want to sleep so sometimes I pass them pain pills at 2100 and they don't need anything until 0700 the next day (that is being very lucky). You are closer with the ppl you work with and you learn to rely on each other. Tasks can be pushed back or moved forward depending on your schedule.

CONS: cranky patients (ESPECIALLY on ortho - they can be downright hateful :uhoh3: ), having issues in the middle of the night and having to page the on-call doc and they chew you out bc you woke them up from their precious sleep, since you are close-knit with your coworkers it can get gossipy. at our hospital we still do the paper MARs, so we have to do all the MAR-to-MAR checks and the 24 hour chart checks, so the paperwork gets pretty much, and on nightshift you can easily lose your social life.

Just remember, it is an excellent way for a new nurse to start out. I am really glad I started out on nights even though I want to go to days because I work with several people who were willing to take the time and teach me things and I've developed close bonds with ppl I work with bc you are with each other so much. You learn time management and how to be independent. You take on more patients at night and sometimes nights are slow and sometimes you can barely keep up, but you hopefully have the support of your coworkers to fall back on. Good luck!

locolorenzo22, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2010

I work ortho/neuro/medical/detox as well. I LOVE night shift. let me say that again I LOVE night shift! I feel like I can take good care of my patients, and I have time. they don't tend to be going down for tests/procedures/surgeries for me.

The problem is that sometimes the first half of the shift is VERY busy. usually trying to catch up pain meds, or admit fresh surgeries, or ER patients.

I find that meds tend to run at 1800, 2000, 2200, and 0000. antibiotics, regular meds, etc tend to take up a lot of time.

OBGYN*RN · Feb 16, 2010

thank you all sooooo much! i really appreciate all your feedback/advice/experiences. i feel a bit better after reading your posts. sounds like for the most part most people on nights dont find it too terrible and getting your body use to the schedule is most of the battle. and @ kalipsored, im 23 so hopefully my social life doesnt suffer tooo much lol. though im sure it will decline a bit. but im willing to take the chance. with the economy and the job market so tough right now, i think having a job makes me happier than anything else. it took me forever to find a job (i graduated in june), so just being able to find something makes me ecstatic. well thanks guys! if anybody else has anymore tips, keep them coming. i work tonight for the first time so ill be sure to come back and tell you all how it was :)

PennEm · Feb 28, 2010

I'm a new grad too hired for the night shift. I do four weeks of orientation on days (I'm starting week 3 now) and then switch over to nights. I'm pretty nervous about the transition because I'm definitely not a night person. Let me know how you're doing, hopefully we can find a routine that works for us!

midinphx, BSN · Mar 1, 2010

I've been on nights for many years. I prefer it. It messes up my life sometimes, but still is better for me right now.

Avoid caffeine several hours before the end of your shift. Drink lots of water early and taper off. Waking up to pee really messes up any sleep pattern.

Find out when you sleep best and try to stick to a schedule. I sleep best in the morning and I capitalize on that time.

Tell that voice in your head that says "you're lazy, get up" to be shut up! If you are tired and you can, sleep!

Turn off the phone.

Treat a sleep day as a need. Do not schedule appointments. A sleep day is not a free day to play.

Exercise regularly. It helps. I exercise when I get up, whether that is a daywake or a nightwake time. It helps me wake up and be ready for my day/night.

I have found nightshift workers to be more relaxed and friendly. I wish you the same luck!

CFitzRN, ADN · Mar 1, 2010

I'm posting this not to discourage you AT ALL, but to give you the other side of the coin. Keep in mind that when I started my nursing career I was 43 (a whole 20 years older than you!) and I am married with 4 kids. Keep that in mind too.

This disclaimer is because I could -not- do night shift. I asked people here and nurses that I know who have worked nights and they all gave me great advice, as these nurses have given you. Despite trying everything, I just had to accept that nights was wrong wrong wrong for me. Had I been young like you and single without kids it probably still would not have worked for me because I found that I just can.not.sleep. during the day. I would come home from work, unwind with herbal tea, a bath, etc - darken the room completely, unplug the phone, put in my earplugs, turn on the fan and fall fast asleep. For about 45 minutes. :uhoh3: Then I would lie in bed for the next 5-6 hours and either cry or pray or cry some more because I knew I had to go back in for another 13 hours on virtually no sleep. But I did it. And it was some of the hardest hours of my life. Then I would come home again and the process would start all over again, and by this time I was becoming physically ill from lack of sleep. I lasted a whole 2 weeks on night shift, then I had to admit defeat. I begged to be put on days (even as a PRN) but they turned me down cold. It was devastating. But it was also one of the most amazing learning experiences of my life for many, many reasons. One of the lessons I needed to learn was that even if one thing doesn't work out, there are many options, and He is in control - not me. :)

I have a feeling you will do fine. Most of the nurses on nights where I was (Labor/Delivery) were young girls like you without husbands/families and they loved it. They swore by it.

One piece of advice - even if it feels "wrong" or you feel messed up the first couple of weeks, keep trying! Many people struggle the first few weeks and then everything evens out and they "get it". A body needs time to adjust. In my case, I was literally not sleeping for days and you can only do that for so long before you get really sick. I decided it wasn't worth my health to keep trying. Everything worked out just fine for me. I wish you the very best!!