Night shift NICU

SteveNNP, MSN, NP · May 4, 2008

NICUgirl77 · May 5, 2008

I am a day shifter now but worked nights for about a year...night specific duties were getting weights, giving baths, changing beds, getting AM labs and chest x-rays. If a baby is going to surgery in the morning the night nurse will get everything ready. As far as admissions and charting they are about the same as on days- people don't stop having babies at night so there are probably just about as many admissions on night shift as on days! The major differences of nights is that you almost never have tests/procedures/surgery done. There are exceptions to that in an emergency situation but for the most part those things are done during the day. Hope this helps a little.

hikernurse · May 5, 2008

I am a day shifter now but worked nights for about a year...night specific duties were getting weights, giving baths, changing beds, getting AM labs and chest x-rays. If a baby is going to surgery in the morning the night nurse will get everything ready. As far as admissions and charting they are about the same as on days- people don't stop having babies at night so there are probably just about as many admissions on night shift as on days! The major differences of nights is that you almost never have tests/procedures/surgery done. There are exceptions to that in an emergency situation but for the most part those things are done during the day. Hope this helps a little.

Same here. We do a little more paperwork; get the flow sheet ready for the next day, reconcile meds, that kind of stuff. There are sometimes (but not always) fewer visitors; I'm always surprised at the number of parents who show up at 0300 :confused: . We had a baby whose parents would stop by as soon as "last call" sounded, but after social work had a long talk with them, that ended :chuckle.

The work environment tends to be a little more, umm, relaxed. The dress code is [unofficially] a little looser and we have more parties. My DH laughs and says he wishes he had a job where he could stay up all Saturday night and party with "babes". Dream on, I tell him.

EricJRN, MSN, RN · May 5, 2008

My DH laughs and says he wishes he had a job where he could stay up all Saturday night and party with "babes". Dream on, I tell him.

It's rough, but someone has to do it. :wink2:

We do all of the things that NICUgirl77 mentioned with the exception of routine chest X-rays on nights. We seem to get a lot of visitors right after we reopen from shift change (8 pm), but a lot of our parent contact after that is on the phone.

One thing that is very different about nights at some places: The doctor is often asleep in the call room, so it can be difficult to decide when they need to be notified of a problem or a change in a baby's condition.

danissa, LPN, LVN · May 5, 2008

One thing that is very different about nights at some places: The doctor is often asleep in the call room, so it can be difficult to decide when they need to be notified of a problem or a change in a baby's condition.

thats never a problem in our place. Yes, the docs go and lay their heads down, (when they have been told they should not!) but if we need them, then there is absolutely no problem waking them. Not on our part anyway! They are paid more per hour than us nurses for being there during the night, and like us, they are there to do their job. I have no problem waking a sleepy Doc, if I need them to see a baby! just like if we are making coffee, we include the docs in that. Babies don't stop being ill cause it's night-time, and I believe we should have medical staff working alongside nursing staff, as happens in the daytime.

texas2007, BSN, RN · May 6, 2008

Our night duties are the same as those previously mentioned. Seems most families are gone by midnight and we put our xrays in the computer and the tech comes around starting at 615 am so sometimes we help position. The good thing I like about our unit is that it's so big, there's usually some reason the doctor/nnp on call is already awake. Some of the nnp's stay up all night anyway so I rarely have the do I call or not dilemma.