Is no sleep a reasonable excuse for calling in sick to work?

You’ve already decided you’re calling in sick OP, so not sure why you’re asking here really.

Same.

It depends on the job. If peoples
lives are in your hands them yes, and there are probably fatigue polices in place in your workplace in that case.

if it’s a desk job then no way.

I had a child that didn’t sleep for years, I know the feeling, but it’s tomorrow the real
tiredness will hit. You can’t take 2 days off.

if your job is likely to kill everyone by you falling asleep, then call in sick. But if not, just suck it up. I’ve done plenty of night shifts before and then had to stay up all day to look after my child.

You’re pissed off and tired but ultimately you can absolutely power through one day of work - get up, have a shower, drink coffee and get out in the fresh air. You can have a lazy weekend and catch up on sleep then.

I rarely get more than 3 hours a night due to chronic insomnia. I go to work 5 days a week. Resilience is a characteristic that really is worth working on. Am I shattered a lot of the time? Yes. Do I have a choice? Not really.

You do have a choice but if I was your line manager I would be a bit internally rolly eyed if you took one of your two working days off due to a bad nights sleep.
Also depends on how many people would be inconvenienced by me not being there. I wouldn’t want my colleagues to have to pick up the slack -my job is customer facing so the total amount of work still needs to be done even with less people there, there’s no ‘putting it off till I get back’.
So ultimately unless you are going to be a danger to yourself and others, I think push on through.

I had night after night of sleep like this for months with my poor sleeper ds. I used to cry before going to work. It’s amazing how little sleep you need to carry on, but not pleasant

If you do want to ring in sick, make something up that’s more understandable

Unless you are a surgeon or a driver or something, I’d say suck it up.

Yeah, it would where I am. If you’re off mon to fri and then the following Monday, you’d have been off for eight days and need a doctor’s note unless you said you recovered on the Saturday or Sunday and then opened a new instance of sickness.

But a Friday absence wouldn’t automatically count as a three-day absence. Not unless you said you didn’t recover until the Sunday!

You're fine to call in sick, as you're unwell and not able to work - the cause is irrelevant in this case.

Ignore the dickheads who think we should be crawling into work over broken glass, there are no medals for ridiculous presenteeism.

Well your employer is wrong. Utter BS.

I’ve had insomnia on and off for for 25+ years. Only time i rang in sick was after three nights no sleep in the early days and i went to the doctor. I worked ina nursery and got grief for that even though i didn’t get paid!

I’m used to it now. A complete no sleep is rare but i’ve powered through and done 12.5 hour shifts. I don’t drive and don’t deal with medications or anything like that. I tend to flag around 4/5 o clock. Plenty of staff that do nights struggle with sleep too.

@KimberleyClark

Being off on a Friday does not count as 3 days. Best thing i ever heard to stop people calling in sick !

If you really feel bad just call in sick - you feel unwell, end of story. The poster about the Bradford factor calculations is correct but from memory I think it only matters if you repeatedly taking Fridays or Mondays off sick.

Blimey, where do you work? That’s harsh. Where I work it would be 1 day.

OP you are not being unreasonable. I’d phone in sick if you feel shaky and unwell because of it. I can WFH if I feel ill but no that is not an option for everyone.

How old is the child? Just a tip, if you haven't tried it, put something under the mattress at the head end so that the child sleeps propped up. Stops them getting so bunged up.

Hope you get some more sleep soon!

I’ve also experienced this although it was a long time ago. About 25 years ago I had what I think was flu and called in sick Tuesday to Friday. Monday was a bank holiday. It went down as 9 days sick. They told me if I didn’t get a doctors note (because it was over a week) I’d be brought in for some sort of disciplinary. My doctor refused as he said it was only 4 days and also I was better by the time I went to him. It went on for ages until they finally dropped the disciplinary but it still was marked down as 9 unauthorised days off.

I definitely wouldn’t want to do my job if I had that little sleep. I’m a pharmacy technician in a hospital, and I don’t think anybody would want a mentally tired tech doing the final accuracy check of their prescriptions!
I also cringe when people mention the lack of sleep they had the night before when I know they’ve driven to work and will be driving back 9 hours later 😖

Everybody is different, I need about 7 hours sleep to feel like I can function! My husband only gets 4.5 hours of sleep each night but because he’s been that way since his mid-teens, it doesn’t affect him.

Same. I used to operate on 3 hours broken sleep a night (or less) for a few years. Sometimes found it easier to not sleep at all than being rewoken every 30 minutes. Always pulled myself together once I was there.

Personally I would (and do regularly!) have an extra coffee and get on with it having a lazy evening and early night. Ds is disabled so crap sleep comes with the game but I wouldn’t use sick leave unless sick (and parental leave when he is!)

But being off work with children also gives more freedom than being at job.

You could have a bit of a lazier day with more screen time if not feeling it, or a lovely day out in the fresh air to recharge. More pleasant than being at work in my experience and a "break" from job work, although not a break from responsibility I agree

I find it harder to power through at work on a Monday when the whole week of coming to work is stretching out ahead of me that a Friday when there is 2 days off work coming up

Well that doesn’t mean every company has the same policy 😂😂

What a very short sighted way of thinking.

It certainly doesn’t at mine.

I'd go in but I survived 6 years on minimal sleep when DD was little. I regularly only got 2-3 hours a night. I guess if you aren't used to it it can feel unmanageable but the human body is capable of surviving a lot more.