11-7 Shift

AprilRNhere · Aug 20, 2007

NOC shift as a nurse assistant...
1) Do you like working nights?
2) Was it hard to adjust at first?
3) Do you get enough sleep during the day and on your days off?
4) Do you still have time to spend with your family and friends?
I was going to work the morning shift, because I have no problem getting up, but after doing clinical during the day, I've decided that it's too stressful to get that many residents dressed, bathed, and up for breakfast when they're supposed to. I don't know if I'd be able to do it. And 3-11 just takes up the whole day, so I wouldn't have very much time for my family, friends, & my boyfriend.
Thanks in advance!

I worked nights for years as a CNA before getting my RN. I loved it...but I'm a night person. I just couldn't adjust to getting up at 5 am...so I went to nights. I got plenty of sleep. BUT...I made sure to rotate my entire schedule. I slept the entire time I would have been working days...then picked my kids up from daycare. Because of this...I also had plenty of time with my friends and family. I kept my schedule as if i had a day job. I slept during the day...was up in the evenigns..and then worked nights.

However..are you part time or full time. I found part time difficult..because of the constnatly changing sleep schedule. As long as I worked frequently..and kept my sleep schedule the same it was fine.

Another point..while nights may seem like less physical work...it is also high stress. Staffing is always lower- so when something happens there are fewer to handle situations.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Aug 20, 2007

many years ago when i was in nursing school i worked as a nursing assistant in a nursing home on the night shift, three days a week, friday, saturday and sunday. i loved working nights. i've always been a kind of night person anyway and used to love staying up as late as possible and sleeping in. to adjust, because it was difficult at first, i used to take a couple of sominex tablets at around 1pm on fridays. at that time sominex had scopolamine in them which has the very wonderful side effect of causing sedation. i would get up for work around 9 or 9:30pm. when i got off work at 7:30 in the morning i learned to find things to keep me awake until about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. by setting up a sleep schedule of going to sleep at 1 or 2pm and getting up a around 9pm i was making getting up and going to work kind of like getting up to go to work during the first part of my "day" so i wasn't dragging my heels when 5am came around. 5am, you will find, is about the slowest and worst time of the night shift to stay awake if you don't have something physical to do to keep you awake. my next problem was on mondays because i had clinicals for school on monday morning--that wasn't a problem as the nursing home let me leave early to get to them. it was at 1pm when i had a lecture until 4pm. by then, the sandman was usually beating me over the head with bags of sand. i sat with my friends and had an agreement with them to poke me in the ribs if i fell asleep. i snuck potato chips and something to drink into class with me (in those days eating and drinking in class was bad) to help stay awake. sometimes i'd take a nodoz tablet (100mg of caffeine) because i don't drink coffee for a one hour kick to stay awake.

something else you can do to help get to sleep that first "day" you need to work nights is to cut your sleep time on the night before so by the time you get to 1 or 2pm in the afternoon you are dog tired already and can fall asleep pretty easily.

be careful with the boyfriend. mine enticed me to go out and do things on the weekend against my sleep schedule that ended up getting me into trouble with my sleep time. and, i'm not proud of it, but i had to call off work once or twice because i just didn't have any sleep at all and knew i wasn't going to be able to make it through the night shift. calling off a school clinical was out of the question. where's the boyfriend now? who knows? however, i still have the nursing career. so, remember to keep your nursing school as your priority.

my mother worked nights for years. she covered the windows of her bedroom with aluminum foil and unplugged her phone. this made her bedroom pitch black. as long as there was no noise from the outside, you could fall asleep in that room and wake up disoriented as to what the time of day was! today, the new formulation of sominex isn't as good as it was back in the 70's. benadryl works just as good as long as you don't use it day after day after day after day.

shannonFNP, BSN, MSN, RN · Aug 20, 2007

I actually just went PRN from working fulltime nights on the pediatrics floor at my hospital. I quit fulltime to work days while I'm in school, and so that I don't have to "commit" to a certain schedule every week.

Anyways, personally, there's no way that I could work nights-sleep during the day- to go to school during the days- sleeping during the night and waking up at 530 am. There's just no way for me personally.

I LOVED the people that I worked with. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. You get to know everyone in the hospital, no clutter of doctors... except for the occassional joy when you wake up one of the more pompous doctors at 2am and they have to come in :) Just kidding... :) Anyways, as far as clutter... there's not a lot of it. Your schedule won't be as hectic as 7-3 shift, but you stay just as busy. During the day, I'll have 7-10 patients and do all of their ADLs, vitals, transporting etc. At nights, I'll have all 20 something patients. Since I'm now working at day shift I hear everyone talk about how "lazy night shift is." I know... nursing politics. BUT that's simply NOT TRUE. You might have a slow night where no one calls out for pain pills every 10 seconds that you're trying to do something. But on other nights, everyone's calling out to be changed, go to the bathroom, pulling out IVs, spazzing out from a nightmare, etc etc ETC!! And you're there by yourself. On those nights, you're way busier than a day person with only 7 pts.

If you can, I'd work the 3-11 shift. Speaking for MY HOSPITAL (and because I've worked A LOT of those shifts) I feel that they are the easiest on ME. (I know there are a lot of people who might lash out at this... to yall, I"M TALKING ABOUT ME, k? :) The baths are mostly done depending on how busy the day was, youre usually working with someone else, the doctors and busy bodies are clearing out... and it's just a lot quieter without you being on your own. So if you can, that's the shift to work IMHO :)