Question for other 7pm-7am nurses

yep...and it only gets worse...i did nites for 5 years..just recently quit due to school...but i couldn't sleep at all at nite..it has been a month now...and i am now sleeping well at nite...

i used to take benedryl and other otc meds to help me sleep.

I had a hard time with sleep and working nights when I first started working in July 2003. It was awful for awhile. Somehow, I made up my mind that sleep was important, and I needed my 8 or more hours of sleep. I decided to do this I had to find a way to sleep during the day and stay up on my nights off.

I tried melatonin and it works for me. I take from 1 to 2.5 mg 30 minutes before I plan to go tosleep. I usually am in bed by 8:00 or 8:30, depending upon when I get home. I like to stay up for an hour before I go to bed. I also eat breakfast before I go to bed. I sleep until 5 or 5:30. Lately though I have slept until 6:00. I guess it's the weather, rainy and gloomy.

On my nights off, I sleep the same hours during the day. I stay up all night until 6 am or 8am and sleep until usually 3pm or 5 pm. Depends on my body.

I'm still adjusting to this night time life. Trying to find ways to have some kind of normal life, while my husband and 17 year old son sleep. I'm looking forward to Daylight Savings Time, when we can finally see the sun after 5 pm.

I love my job, I enjoy the night shift. I'm learning to enjoy being a creature of the night. Some "adjust", some may never adjust.

I'm fairly new to working nights, but here's what I am doing...

Say I have to work Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Wednesday day, I take a nap--3 hours if I can stay asleep that long.

When I get home Thursday morning, I go to bed around 8 and sleep until 3. Same thing on Friday.

Saturday I stumble into the bed around 8 and get up around 12. Then I am ready for sleep that night around 9.

I haven't had any troubles adjusting yet. My sleep room is kept dark and quiet. There is no phone in there, and there are about 3 layers of stuff over the window. I turn off the hall light and shut the door. There is a HEPA filter in the room that I turn on high and that drowns out any noise that might happen.

When I was working nights, it seemed either I was sleeping or trying to sleep! I got so tired of thinking about my sleep pattern. I am very happy I do not have that worry any more. No more nights for me.

I don't try to sleep my nights off. I just sleep when I'm tired. ometimes that is at night sometimes during the day.

Noney

I seem to get my best sleep from 10 am to 3 pm, if lucky I sleep till 5pm. Tylenol pm (generic is very inexpensive at costco, yet any generic is fine) helps me a lot. It usually works in about an hour.

You know when you have adjusted when you um go at 10 pm. I find I get really hungry at 3:30 am. After that meal I stop all cafeine. Here is a link that helped me adjust : http://www.enw.org/NightShift.htm

Look into melatonin. You can purchase it over the counter.

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/publications/melatoninthefact.cfm

I swear by it to sleep when night shifts have thrown my body out of whack.

Jill (Pa)

took me about one year before i could come home and fall asleep right away, that was five years ago and i have no regrets. consider all the "good" there is to working nights: no meals to serve, no visitors to pamper, no phones ringing, no admin types, and less i forget...NO docs (unless needed). night shifters are a different breed, some good, some slugs, but mostly happy to be on the shift they prefer. good luck.

O'D

one word.... ambien

Originally posted by LilgirlRN

one word.... ambien

My health insurance will only pay for one week of ambien, period.