to ask if you work night shifts and you hVe young children...

[guiltynetter]

how do you do it?

I work regular nights as part of my job. no chance of stopping them. I only work part time since having my DD so they are just 2 x 12 hour shifts (unlike when I was full time and did 4 in a row)

on my first night shift I have my 2 year old DD all day. my DH is home from work at 4.30 and we have our tea then I go to bed to try and get a couple of hours in but I never ever can. i lie there desperate to sleep and thinking how hard the shift will be if I don't...I constantly clock watch, I just can't do it. it's a bit pointless really.

subsequently I go to work and by the time I've finished my shift the next morning I've been up for 27 hours with no sleep. I find it terribly hard and often end up in tears when I get home I take my DD to nursery for the morning, get 3 hours sleep myself then repeat.

am I just being really soft? I find it really hard to cope! any tips would be great. I've worked nights for 5 years so I'm no newbie it's just since having my DD I've found it hard. thanks.

I worked every other night without sleeping during the day so up all day Sunday, work Sunday night, stay up through Minday and go to bed, repeated throughout the week.
12 hour shifts.
No other option 😳

It's scary really to think that the health and safety of patients are in the hands of such sleep deprived nurses and carers.

When I used to do nights (about 5 years ago) it was considered fine for the nurses to sleep during their break but now it isn't. I really don't see the logic in stopping it as it benefits nobody and in fact just does the opposite.

I sympathise. I'm working a night shift tonight and have been up since 6.30am with my children. I'm tired already. Everyone I work with who has children is in the same situation.

I guess it makes me feel sort of better that others are in the same situation I thought maybe I was just handling it badly. when I went back to work I was allowed one fixed shift and that's all. would be so much easier if I knew what I was working.

Writer - I think the problem is that if we go on a break at say 4am- 5.30, it is very easy to slip into a deep sleep rather than just dozing. If I then suddenly need to come back off my break early for example because an emergency has occurred, I am likely to be dopey and take a few minutes to wake up and we can't afford for that to happen because you need to be ready to deal with anything be it a difficult drug calculation or a fire. I have seen some agency fall asleep at the table that we sit around on nights when things are quiet or when they are on a one to one meant to be watching a confused patient. it is usually beacuse they are totally knackered doing a day shift followed by a night trying to get whatever work they can.

I found it much easier when I did all my nights together, or a set of 4 plus a set of 3 for each rota cycle. At the moment I do 3 long days 0730-2000 then 2 nights 1930-0800 then 2 days off (1 of which is the day immediately after a night) then back to 0730 -1800. It's not so much the nights per se it's changing backwards and forwards so often that does me in. I have 3 toddlers and it's hard.

I've found cycling to / from work helps - I really notice if I don't. I think the exercise helps to clear my head and tire me a bit physically. I'm also trying to make a real effort to eat well when on nights - fruit, salads, homemade leftovers instead of crisps and chocolate. I definitely feel the better for it. Milky drink in the morning, and shower / brush teeth before bed. I tend to aim for sleep by 10 and up for 4 so I can do tea and bath with the kids before leaving. Blackout blinds have been great.

And I'm on nights this weekend, so I feel your pain!

This is quite a good read:

cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0924/4392/files/working-the-nightshift-booklet.pdf?1709961806511712341

OP why don't you try again re childminder?

Next door neighbour was like you, couldn't find childminder she liked, so her mum lived with her for about a year to mind her new baby, then when her mum moved away and her DD has started at school one of the mums who was a childminder said she had capacity or just took on neighbour's baby i think it was just neighbour's baby and her own baby (the DDs were at school together). Neighbour over the moon about CM and this was after she swore blind she couldn't find one she liked!

Parallax - You do 60 hours a week with 3 toddlers ? is that per fortnight?

Also ask for your Rota as far as in advance as you need it explainp why you need it and then your nursery can do the flexible for you.

Personally I wouldn't get hooked on OTC Nytol I did years ago and not fun to wean yourself off it.

No, I'm an anaesthetic ST. It's an 8 week rolling rota, so some weeks I work a bit less (depending how the weeks fall across the calendar week) I average 48 hours a week. (Obv not including the time for exam revision / courses etc)

I'm a doctor and work nights pretty frequently on a reasonably antisocial rota. The only way I am safe to work is by having DD in childcare around my shifts. I sleep for an afternoon before I start, I get 6hrs in between shifts and then again after the last one (exactly how much depends how the nights have gone - I never sleep at work, though some do).

You should be able to persuade your ward manager to give you some more notice of shifts (or ask for set shifts, though they seem to be becoming a thing of the past). Could you split them or would that just trash your whole week? Trail one into or out of the weekend so the hardest childcare is DH's responsibility. You're not being a wuss, night working is hard.

(Sorry ST = specialist trainee ie 'senior' junior doctor. Or junior senior doctor, depending on the point that Jez is trying to make )

I work nights similar to you. Changing them/ not doing them is not an option for me either ( junior doctor). I go to the work on the first shift like you having been up since 6/6.30 am and finish at 9.30am the next morning. I am an absolute zombie by then. I am currently working an hours drive away from where I live and I don't feel safe to go home so I stay in hospital accomodation- the quality of sleep there ( think student halls) is rubbish but at least I don't drive. We have child care for days between nights, and where possible the day before and after... So I often don't see my child for 4 or 5 days😞 But it's the only way for me. Child care is essential. I simply couldn't survive on 3-4 hours a day between nights ( and to be honest I doubt anyone would want me to)

I guess it's a matter of whether you can afford childcare though and I imagine many in lower paid jobs such as health care asistants find it difficult even with help. I sometimes think that when my kids were small I maybe should have just worked days , put them all in childcare ( and claimed tax credits to cover most of it as they were much more generous inthose days!) and saved my sanity rather than surviving on just a few hours sleep for years like I did.

I had twins the second time round and we couldn't afford the childcare to cover either of our shifts for 3 under 2s. my husband earnt less than me so quit his job (not a medic) and looks after them.

This is much better for my sleep than no childcare, as long as the guilt isn't keeping me awake! (Not so much the guilt of him stopping work, but the guilt of sleeping while he deals with bellowing small people.)