night shift & sleep

I don't really have any advice for you. I'm kind of in similar circumstances with working nights. Except I only have every other weekend off and a day here and there in between 3 and 4 days working straight. So I end up trying to maintain my sleeping during the day and being awake at night even on my "nights" off. It's become a real pain because I feel like I don't near the time I would like to have with my kids and husband. But I try and spend every waking minute I can with them to make up for the amount of time I'm asleep. I feel like I'm sleeping more hours because the quality of sleep is lower than if I were sleeping during the night like our bodies are used to. If you find a better way to keep up the schedule, please pass it along!

I feel your pain, as I am having problems adjusting to night shift as well. I have no problem sleeping during the day or being up at night, I just feel like I am missing out on some quality time with people. I don't have a real set schedule, we have to work every other weekend and that usually makes me not get 3 on 4 off in a row each week.

What I do is my first day/night off after work is I come home and set my alarm to 4pm before I go to sleep. Then I have time to shower/dress before hubby gets home. Since I am a bit more tired, I still stay up late but try to get to bed a bit earlier and wake up a bit earlier, like bed at 4am and up by 1pm. That way I'm not messing my schedule up too much and I still have enough energy to make it through a whole day. Earliest I ever go to bed is 3am, earliest I ever wake up is noon. But I don't have kids, so I'm sure it would be much harder to stick to this if I had em.

Even by trying to be awake during the day more, I still feel like I'm missing out on things sometimes, but then I remind myself that if I worked days I would need to be in bed by 8-9am each night which would be torture for me.

I am curious to hear how others do it, but I have yet to be successful in that whole "getting back on a day routine" thing so far

I usually work 2 or 3 in a row, sometimes 8's, sometimes 12's. I generally sleep from 730 to about 1400, but sometimes less, sometimes more. On my days off, I try to switch back to a 'day' schedule, up by about 830 at the latest and to bed around 1030 or 11 at night.

I was working a rotation that consisted of mostly nights, 2 every week minimum, but gave it up because I found I just felt like crap all the time, and they never gave me anything else but nights. Now I might do 2 or 3 nights a month, usually grouped together, and work 12 hour days and the occasional 8 hr 3-11. Works better for me.

It is for this very reason that I decided to accept a position where I will be working 12-hr nights on Tue-Wed-Thurs every week.

I love working night shift, but feel as I am always trying to find a balance between work/sleep/life. If I have had a rough few nights at work, sometimes all I do is sleep my first day off, then have trouble sleeping with my family my first night off. Sometimes, I fight with myself on whether to sleep or stay up.

How many of you people have to split your night shifts in one roster? We have to do four nights every 28 days. After working permanent nights I sleep really well. And because we work 10 and a half hour shifts, as opposed to 8 hour shifts during the day, we get an extra day off if we are full time.

So I handle night shift really well. I just make sure I have three days off after, so the first day I may sleep a while, and then the next two I have time to spend with people...

Jay

Thanks for all your responses. At least I feel like I'm not alone in this!

Thanks for all your responses. At least I feel like I'm not alone in this!

You are so not alone. I feel like I waste a lot more hours sleeping when I'm working nights, yet I'm always tired. Several noc nurses where I work totally switch their schedules around and stay up all night even when they're not working, but I'd hate that; I'd miss sunshine too much.

You might try staying up a couple of hours later in the evening to see if you can sleep later in the morning, and either take a shorter nap or drink caffeine instead of going back to sleep mid-afternoon. I think everyone working night shift comes up with their own system on how to have a life on their days off. This subject has been covered recently, so I suggest you do a search.

On my days off, I stay up until at least 2 or 3am. That way I still can get up at 10 or 11am and have time with the family. If I have to work that night, I will take a brief nap if needed. I use the time I stay up to study, watch tv or read. This works best on the weekend since everyone sleeps in, so I'm only missing an hour or two from family life.