Night Shift: What are your sleep patterns?

HGarcia1195 · Jan 13, 2011

Hi,

I usually work 3 12-hour shifts in a row. However when I am off work after working the 3 nights in a row, I find myself wanting to sleep all day til 5-6pm. After waking up, I then go back to sleep around 9-10pm and sleep all night to about 7am. Is there something wrong with me or does anyone else do this? Any input would help. Thanks :-)

klone, MSN, RN · Jan 13, 2011

1. regarding night shift, i wonder if working 12 hour shifts 3/7 days a week will be better than 8 hour shifts 5/7 days a week??? people who have worked 12 hour shifts tell me sometimes, you can have 5 days in a row off.

does that let you enjoy living with the rest of the world during that time?

yes, i absolutely believe working three 12s is better than working 4-5 8s. i do sometimes have 5 in a row off, (just starting one of those today - yay!), but more commonly it's 2, 3 or 4 in a row. i prefer to do my 3 12s in three consecutive nights so that i have more days off in a row

2. how can you maximize the sleep you get during the day? i've got a 21 month old and i imagine he will be in and out of my room just to be with me, i don't mind...how long do you have to sleep during the day? i will be living with mom and she likes her tv loud. i figure i will be too tired to care.

my advice to you is to get childcare so that you can sleep a solid 5-8 hours after working a night shift (even if you have the following night off). i did what you are thinking of doing for a year, and it near killed me. after i had my baby and went back to work, we didn't want to use childcare. so i never worked two nights in a row. what that meant is that i essentially worked every other night (once in a while i would have two nights off in a row). i would work, come home, stay up with my baby, and nap when he napped. at first, that mean two 2-hour stretches of sleep each day, then go to bed at the regular time at night, but as he got older and more mobile, i was lucky if i could get one 2-hour nap after working all night. i became chronically sleep deprived, and looking back on it, severely depressed. after about 10 months of this, my husband said i needed to either find a day job or go on antidepressants, because i was becoming unbearable to live with (thankfully a day position opened on my unit). when we moved last spring and i went back to working nights, i told my husband in no uncertain terms that our baby (now 2 1/2) will be going into daycare three days a week so that i can get adequate amounts of sleep. since i was now able to sleep for adequate stretches, i made the decision to group my shifts together so i actually had several days off in a row every week and i now feel like i can enjoy my family and a daytime life again.

so my long winded advice to you is to make sure you're getting adequate amounts of sleep, even if that means finding childcare for 4-6 hours a day, on the days after you work.

the way my schedule looks is when i come home from work, i bring the 2yo to daycare (just down the street), come home, take an ambien, and collapse into bed. i am usually asleep by 0830. i generally wake at 3pm, which is right about when my daughter comes home from school. i get up, shower, pick up the toddler from daycare, prepare dinner, help daughter with homework, have dinner with the family, then go to work. lather, rinse, repeat. on the morning after my last shift before a few days off, i do the same thing but skip the ambien, which means i sleep until 12 or 1, rather than 3. that ensures that i'm still able to get to sleep at a fairly reasonable time that night, setting me back up for a day schedule on my days off.

during the day before my first shift at work, i do try to get a 1-2 hour nap that afternoon (toddler is usually at home with me that day, so i will just lie down with him for his afternoon nap). if i don't get that nap, i find the drive home from work the next morning to be a bit scary (windows rolled down in 12degree temps, fighting to stay awake).

hope this helps.

klone, MSN, RN · Jan 13, 2011

Hi,
I usually work 3 12-hour shifts in a row. However when I am off work after working the 3 nights in a row, I find myself wanting to sleep all day til 5-6pm. After waking up, I then go back to sleep around 9-10pm and sleep all night to about 7am. Is there something wrong with me or does anyone else do this? Any input would help. Thanks :-)

Nope, nothing wrong with it, as long as you're still able to get to sleep at night, rather than starting a cycle of nighttime insomnia.

I really believe that most people don't sleep as well during the day as they do at night (circadian rhythms), and so it's just the body's way of catching up.

klone, MSN, RN · Jan 13, 2011

Also, preparing your sleep space is really important. You should make sure it stays DARK, as well as on the cooler side (a rise in body temperature is what signals your body to be awake, and if the room is warmer, you don't tend to sleep as soundly). Foam earplugs help to keep it quiet, and turn the ringer off on your phone.

Our bedroom is in the basement, which is a PERFECT sleep environment for me.