The Night Shift

Ruby Vee, BSN · Feb 16, 2007

hi everyone! for those of you who are working or have worked the night shift full time i have a question: do most hospitals schedule full time night shift rn's in 12 hr shifts?? i have an interview next week for a full time nights position and know that some of their nurses work 12's but am hoping that its not five 8 hr shifts. i cant imagine working 5 nights a week and sleeping during the day everyday. sounds depressing, no sunlight!!

12 hour night shift nurses see more sunlight than 12 hour dayshift nurses! if you work days, it's often dark when you're driving in and dark when you're leaving. working nights, you get up in the afternoon when it's daylight, usually drive to work and drive home in daylight!

Oncnurse86 · Feb 16, 2007

Right thats what i want haha! But do you know of any hospitals that schedule the FT nights RN's on five 8 hr shifts a week? Thats my fear

NicoleRN07, RN · Feb 16, 2007

I think most do 12 hr shifts, but there was a point in our dept where they tried to make me take a 7pm-3am 5 day a week position in our ER. I simply refused, because I would be the only staff member working a schedule like this, and did not feel it was a necessary change. 5 night shifts in a week.....I would be on the psych ward!!

TazziRN, RN · Feb 16, 2007

Depends on the facility. Where I work it's nothing but 12's, but where I worked before they have 8, 10, and 12-hour shifts.

RN007 · Feb 16, 2007

The hospital where I do clinicals has 8-hr night shifts.

jnrsmommy · Feb 16, 2007

The floor I work on has 8 and 12 hr shifts. I prefer working 3-4 12s, but lately, I've been scheduled to work 11P-7A. While that's not my preferred schedule and I do have to work more days a week, I do get to spend more time during the day w/ my family, so it evens out for me.

Oh, and the shifts we have are 7-3, 3-11, 11-7, 7-7, 3-3, & 11-11. There isn't enough money to make me work 3-3 or 11-11

Oncnurse86 · Feb 16, 2007

I think most do 12 hr shifts, but there was a point in our dept where they tried to make me take a 7pm-3am 5 day a week position in our ER. I simply refused, because I would be the only staff member working a schedule like this, and did not feel it was a necessary change. 5 night shifts in a week.....I would be on the psych ward!!

I agree w/ you about ending up on the psych ward!! At the hospital I used to work the night shift nurses only worked in 8's but they were all part time so they didn't have to work 5 nights a week! I'm HOPING & PRAYING that this job im interviewing for is 12's b/c its SO close to home and it seems like the best option i've seen so far!:smilecoffeecup: Thanks for your reply!

RUcon08 · Feb 16, 2007

Slightly off-topic, but to people who do the 12-hour night shift schedule after awhile, how does this affect your general sleep schedule? (I'm a third-year student right now so I have no idea/haven't talked to anyone about this.) Do you do the sleep-at-night thing for the 3 days you work, and then revert back to a regular nightly sleep schedule for the other 4 days, etc., or??

mom2michael, MSN, RN, NP · Feb 16, 2007

Slightly off-topic, but to people who do the 12-hour night shift schedule after awhile, how does this affect your general sleep schedule? (I'm a third-year student right now so I have no idea/haven't talked to anyone about this.) Do you do the sleep-at-night thing for the 3 days you work, and then revert back to a regular nightly sleep schedule for the other 4 days, etc., or??

We self schedule and I do all my 3 in a row. I sleep the night before I start my 3 days, like normal, then I take a nap before I go to work (about 2-3 hours) usually after lunch when I'm already tired. Then I work my 3 nights in a row. My final "day" I sleep until around 1 or so. I'm usually tired that day from working 3 days in a row plus getting hardly any sleep - so going to bed that night and switching back to a "normal" schedule isn't a problem. I have my days off, then start back up again.

allpcn · Feb 16, 2007

RUcon08,

I've been doing 12hr nights for 9yrs. When my kids were younger I didn't get much sleep, so on my days off I slept anytime with no problem. Now that my kids are all in school and old enough to get themselves up and ready for school, I tend to keep a night schedule all week. On my days off I go to bed between 3-4 am and get up around noon. My husband works from home so we keep the same schedule. I like it because on days off I'm up and around when the kids come home from school and I get all the private time with my husband after the kids are in bed. On the days I work I sleep all day (until 4pm) see the kids before work and have no trouble staying awake and alert through out the night.

I never want to work days, too hard to stay awake.

jannrn · Feb 17, 2007

The small hosp I work at will only offer 8 hr shifts. Most of the night shift, including me really want 12 hour shifts! It is really difficult working 5 nights a week. I am fortunate to be a .7 so it is 3 or 4 nights a week, but would love to increase my hours and work 12's or decrease the number of times I head to work and keep similar hours.

The administration won't let us do 12's first because they can't get 100% of the staff to want 12's (and what do you think the likelihood of getting 100% of anything is?)

the other reason is the law in CA that anything over 8 hr is overtime? as far as I know that is most places but I thought you could get around it by making your status 12 hour so that anything over 12 hr is overtime, not 8.

also, most hosp IN CA have 12 hour shifts, are they going under financially because of all the overtime, OR maybe the hosp I work at is just making excuses for not making it work.

I've given up for now. I like the place alot and don't want to change hosp over the 12's but don't think I'll do 8's forever.