NHS night shifts

[kittensmittens1]

I am a new student midwife and for my first placement I am on 6 weeks of night shifts. It's my 3rd shift tomorrow and I'm really, really struggling. I'm dreading my shifts, I feel so exhausted after 1/2am that I can barely think.

It wouldn't be so bad if my shifts were 3 consecutive nights but this weeks it's been Tuesday, Wednesday & Sunday and the rest of my placement is similar. What do I do with myself for the days inbetween, stay nocturnal and not see my family? I can't keep flipping back and forth.

The day before my shift I've been having a late night then waking up early morning and then having an afternoon nap but i still really struggle.

The team has a lot of student so no wriggle room to change and no one else would swap with me as they've all said they'd hate doing all nights. I'm following my mentors schedule and she works permanent nights which is the reason behind it.

Do you have any tips or advice for me? The thought of doing this for another 5 weeks fills me with dread. I feel like it's ruining my life. If I was on day shifts I know I wouldn't feel this way.

I'm glad you are going to ask for consecutive nights, seems sensible.

I'm not much help because when I was doing permanent nights I had young kids at home so just couldn't sleep on the day. Only way I got through it was to work one night on, one night off. Almost killed me when I had to do two shifts back to back on no sleep.

Night work messes with your head. I don't think I had a shift where I didn't cry.

Try melatonin.

Just to reiterate how bad it is that you have been expected to do non-consecutive nights with no discussion as a student, and a first year at that...

I’m a HCP with a teaching element to my job. If I heard about a situation like this with a student at work I would ask you wanted me to help you to get your shifts changed, whether you were my student or not. If you refused I would respect that and would wait a while, but at some point (maybe well after you had finished your placement if you really really didn’t want it looking into and being liked to you) I would escalate it anyway. This is not on.

How we treat student HCPs makes me absolutely despair .

Just to echo that you absolutely shouldn't be expected to do this as a first year. I how that you get somewhere with the manager and your uni should support you.

Everyone is different with preparation. I would sleep normally and then have a nap in the afternoon before a night shift then use ear plugs to sleep in the day and really treat it as a night so no getting up at lunch time etc but sleep 8 hours. After my last night I would try to get up at 1ish and then go to bed at a normal time.

Doing shifts I could drop off to sleep any time anywhere after a while!

You say you get really tired at a certain point. That's a known thing, the window of circadian low. There is a lot of research about it within human factors. A lot from the airline industry which you'll find in your studies has become something that we draw from a lot into drive to improve safety and knowledge of human factors. You'll get used to what works for you to get through that. It is tempting to eat a lot of crap on nights but stay hydrated and try having easy to snack on but not crap things. Punnets of grapes etc are good. If you know you normally flag at a certain point then try to give yourself a task to do then to get you up and moving. Checking the emergency trollies can be a good one.

@Babdoc how is that a remotely helpful post? Do you want a medal in the misery Olympics?

OP definitely ask for consecutive shifts. I agree with all the advice regarding a lovely bedroom atmosphere - try to have something like hot milk before you go to bed. It apparently helps you sleep, but I also think that psychologically it helps to trigger a wind-down and signals bedtime.

[quote kittensmittens1]@addictedtotheflats that's helpful thank you.

I know I'm supposed to have a supervisor and an assessor but there's only ever been 1 midwife on with me. She's been lovely, but says she's not sure which one she is for me (if any) as she hasn't been told. I haven't met the manager as she only works days.

I will try to get an email address for her to clarify these points as it is important and I need to know who's signing off my online bits.

Many thanks [/quote]
If this midwife is working with you then she’s your supervisor. You shouldn’t work with your assessor according to nmc guidelines (apart from the nmc emergency covid standards have said in exceptional circumstances you can currently, but if you have both she sounds like your PS).

Its all very well some people here saying you shouldn’t be expected to do this as a first year student but the facts are allocations are generally so tight there’s not much choice. You can only have so many students per shift.

The issue is you have a PS who works nights. Find out who does the student allocation/off duty and talk to them. You can have more than one supervisor per placement. So if there’s space on the shift you can work with others. So they might be able to swap some of your nights to days or at least make them consecutive.

Worst case just remember this is one placement.....get through it one shift at a time. You’ll get to know who works nights a lot and who doesn’t and next time get in early and talk to the off duty person about working with someone who does a better mix.

Please check with your uni as to whether you are meant to / allowed to be doing so many nights. When I was supervising student nurses in their final placement (so just about to qualify) they only had to do 3-4 nights in 6 weeks. Many opted to do more for more time with their mentor but there was a limit placed on them

This was one of the reasons i had to quit nurse training. I cant nap and im a bad sleeper at the best of times. Made me ill. Irregular night shifts have real health implications, whereas regular night shifts, not so much

Agree with much of what has been said, it does get easier. On the day of the first shift, try to get out in the morning, go for a walk or run, then a big carby lunch (pasta is good) and into bed no later than 2pm (ideally 1 if you have to get up for the school run). I set an alarm for 5/6pm then have "breakfast food" and coffee !! rather than "dinner". I try to have "lunch" at around midnight/1am (soup and or sandwiches) with a bit of fruit. Sometimes I was lucky enough to get an hour or so's nap around the small hours (2/3/4 am) I would have another coffee at this point and something easy to eat like a cereal bar or yoghurt (usually between 5&6am). My shifts generally finished around 8 and I would often walk or cycle home, then something to eat, bath or shower and into bed for as close to 9:30 or 10 as I could manage

I haven't done night shifts for about 7 years and do miss going home to bed as the rest of the hospital start work