What do you do?

Revel in the glory of the peace and quiet because it's fleeting. I'm not ashamed to admit I'll bust out a book and enjoy the quiet. Usually an oddly quiet night means for a a hectic one the next night.

Those nights almost never happen, but if I've already done all of my mandatory education, I always have my Kindle in my purse, just in case!

When you have down time on the night shift? I am talking about patient care is done; charting is done, no co-worker needs help getting caught up, yadda yadda. Do you sit and read a book or try to look busy?

I never encountered this. There was always something to do. In LTC it might be bringing down to the basement low O2 tanks and bringing up full ones. Just one example.

EAT!

Usually don't get a great deal of downtime but it's usually just enough to relax for 15-20 min to eat & play on my phone for a few minutes. If I have more time than that, I try to do a more thorough chart review, looking into histories that I don't usually get much of in report.

Say a few prayers that no one calls 911 or decides that 0300 is the perfect time to bring their sleeping kid in...

Chat with coworkers (happens during all nursing station time anyhow). Read occasionally. Watch YouTube on my phone quietly. Clean keyboards (those things are disgusting). Print out teaching sheets for my patients. Eat snacks. Read histories. Prepare a room for an admit.

I just wish I could take a nap. That would be amazing.

~ No One Can Make You Feel Inferior Without Your Consent -Eleanor Roosevelt ~

It is pretty rare that, not only is it a slower night for me, but slower night for my other co-workers, too. Usually, on my slower nights, which are fairly rare, I help another co-worker with their admission (because if I'm not getting one, it's a guarantee that a coworker next to me will be), cleaning up a patient, etc. But, on the rare night that everything is done for everybody, those are the nights that I do my CEU's, read the H/P.

seems to me there is always cleaning to be done. Try to help the day shift out by creating a neater workspace. Do some computer training. I do not recall many nights where we had a lot of time on our hands.