switching shifts?

[sbostonRN]

Backstory: Fairly new nurse working in subacute rehab full-time day shift. I have a very large patient load and have been looking for a new job with better ratios and I'm also looking to transition either to acute rehab or acute care hospital.

So, with that being said, I was called today about an interview for an evening shift job I applied for. It's still full-time and the commute will be much longer than I currently have (40 minutes vs. 10-15 minutes). However it's at an acute rehab hospital and I'm pretty excited about the opportunity. They do a lot more acute things that I've never seen at our facility - vents, trachs, in-house dialysis, as well as much more acute rehabilitation.

One of the things I love most about my job is working with rehab patients and seeing them improve and eventually go home. SO I think I would LOVE working in a place like this. I'm concerned about the shift though. Has anyone ever switched from a day shift to an evening or night shift job? How did the transition go and how was your family life affected? When I went into nursing, I expected to work all sorts of crazy hours, but I got lucky with a day shift position for my first job as an RN. Any advice from other nurses?

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

I just went from being a day person to working 12 hour nights. I am in my fifth week now. I won't lie, it is a rough transition if you aren't naturally a night person. I am only this week starting to sleep decently enough during the day not to feel like a walking zombie. My family isn't seeing much of me and there is a lonely separation between them and I now that was not there before. Almost like we can't relate to one another's lives. I have adjusted to working nights, but transitioning back to daytime hours on my days off is getting really hard. My husband works days and on the three nights I am on duty at the hospital we literally do not see one another. My boys are teenagers, so hard to tell how this is affecting them, since they have little use for me nowadays anyway.

I am enjoying night shift a lot, but I will jump at the chance to have a day position when/if it should present itself.