which shift is preferable for nurses who has a baby?

Genista, BSN, RN · Jan 27, 2013

Congrats on your new baby! I think the best shift depends on your partner's schedule,and what works best for you & your family. I can see how night shift can be tough, as you are gone at night but likely sleeping a good portion of the day, and missing baby's awake time. With our kids, I have worked evening shift. I am home most of the day, but am gone mid afternoon & evenings. I get home late enough so that I do sleep in the next morning to what seems later than most (10 am), but it's till close to "dayshift" so on my days off, I can adjust by a few hours. Also, if baby is up all night, your work shift isn't till afternoon, so maybe you can fit a nap in before work. That's pretty nice. My kids didn't "sleep through the night" till well after 1 year. That can be hard if you have to be at work at 7 am. Just my experience. Now that my kids are older, and heading to school, I am looking at switching to dayshift (so I am working when they are in school/ and am home when they are home). I really have enjoyed pm shift/swing shift for birth to age 5. Maybe consider this if it fits in with your family. I think working two different jobs on two different shifts as you do, must be hard also. But we all have to do what works best. Only you can decide what might work for you. Good luck! :-)

beeker · Jan 27, 2013

Will you be using daycare or have family watching your baby? I work nights, when my baby comes I want days. I do not want to have to put my child in daycare for 2 days to cover just one shift. But I Need to sleep before and after. So it depends in your childcare situation.

kmarie724 · Jan 27, 2013

I just recently switched from evenings to days. I have two little girls, ages 4 years and 13 months. Evenings were nice because I had my mornings free with them to do what we needed to do and I could often take an hour nap before work if I had a rough night with the baby being up a lot.

Days are rough sometimes because the baby still doesn't always sleep through the night, so it's rough getting up a 0500 if I was up with her. But it is nice that I am always home for bedtime and we have a consistent bedtime routine now (my husband works a combination of days and evenings, so they were often at my parents' house for bedtime, then would get woken up and taken home when me or him got off work).

I actually think evenings worked better for me with little kids, but I switched to days when I had the opportunity because full time day shift opening don't come up very often and I don't want to be working evenings when my kids are school age since that would mean not really seeing them on days I work.