To think a 4am start every day is unreasonable?

[tinyissues]

DD has a relatively new job which is her first job relating to her degree (has been doing it 3 months).

Issue is it's a 4am start every Monday-Friday! She's such a night owl, so is going to bed at 11pm every night, to get up for 3...

I'm worried she is literally knocking years off her life. She admits she is really tired but just catches up on weekends or takes a nap after work.

AIBU to think this isn't a sustainable job and she needs to find something else?

It's 4-1pm as well so quite long

If she wants this job, she’ll need to adapt her sleeping schedule, it’s that simple. My DH works with people in different time zones and some need to start work early as they’re several hours behind their colleagues. It’s their choice to work in that industry. 🤷

If she goes to bed 8-9 most nights, she’ll be fine. She can stay up later at the weekend.

Oh yes, being young! I remember my parents staying with us when we lived overseas, at about half ten on Friday night I said to my husband We need to get ready, and my father said, Yes, I'm ready to turn in too! Er no, we were getting ready to go out!
Those were the days my friend!

If she’s young and healthy it should be fine. If she doesn’t do it, she will be replaced by someone who will. It’ll make the word of difference if she went to bed at 9.30pm though.

DH has a job which starts earlier than this, the key is going to bed early, around 7-8pm. It sucks but there are loads of people around the country doing the same.

She's young and ( presumably healthy)
It's not the job, it's her sleeping pattern
She simply needs to go to sleep at 9pm
As she's an adult, she has to be left to her own choices

4am to 1pm isn't unsustainable at all.

Going to bed at 11pm when you have to get up at 3am is however and she will learn this or she will get herself fired for being knackered at work and making mistakes.

Up to her to learn this really.

She’ll learn to manage her sleeping time if what she’s doing doesn’t work. In our early 20s DH worked 4am til often 8 or 9pm. Don’t think he could manage that schedule now but when you’re young it seems like nothing.

If she gets two or three hours' sleep in the afternoons after work, she's not doing badly.

The 4am start time is fine, the hours are fine.

I read a long report recently about how scientists are only just starting to realise the myriad ways that long term disordered sleep/not enough sleep can affect health.

We can all say that we did it in our 20's etc. and yep, she'll probably be fine, but it would make a lot of sense to get to bed earlier. But she'll probably arrive at that decision on her own.

id suggest stopping caffeine and setting a good bedtime routine at around 9pm

your dd doesn't have to be a night owl and can work on changing her bodies rhythm

the studies on the Spanish though conclude that a late night and early morning with a siesta around 2pm was a life lengthening way of living

I do wish people wouldn't be so secretive! How can I speculate wildly properly without more information? What is the job? Same with holidays-just long haul's no good! Where?? And "his hobby"-actually, that one's easy, it's cycling......

It's fine. She's young, she'll cope. Or maybe she'll find it's too much and will look for something else. It's really no big deal. There's a lot of parents on here wrapping their adult children up in cotton wool imo.

When I was her age I was up half the night socialising and then up to do a breakfast shift in a cafe. Sometimes I hardly slept at all. It had a shelf life but it was fun and I don't think there's any permanent damage.

It's fine. She just needs to go to bed earlier. The human body is very very adaptable to habit forming.

Tell her to watch this - and go to bed earlier

She'll adapt, as others have said. She'll have to be adult enough to realise that she needs to go to bed earlier before work days. I did this for about 2 years working with horses.

Yes, @Whichnumbers having a siesta is supposed to be very healthy.

Purely anecdotal, but we’re discussed this in my family as my Granny, who was a busy farmer’s wife, always had a rest after lunch. She lived into her 90’s, v. healthy until her final year.

4-1 isn't a long shift

I wouldn't like a 4am job start every day. No way. So I'd have to get up at 3.

Everyone in here saying it is fine.

Would you be okay with getting up at3am every day?

No chance, but I know loads of people have to. A friend is flight controller - totally usual for him to up at 3 am. Doctors? Nurses? It's not exactly unheard of!

Such odd logic. Just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it unreasonable.

Not a 4am start, but I actually preferred my 6am-1pm 5 days a week than my current 8:30-5pm 4 days a week. Better in terms of work life balance.

@tinyissues For the safety of all concerned and herself she must get into a routine of regular bed at 8pm to 9pm. She will be a menace working if tired and if driving I dread to think!

But if you apply for a job that requires 4am starts, that's what you get. Don't apply for the job if you don't want to do it.

OP didn't say what the job is, but if it's in a medical setting or something, unsociable hours are part and parcel of the job.

I get up at 5am, so not quite 3am but early. I don't HAVE to, but I'm an early riser. I go to bed between 9-10pm. Works for me.

It's not that I don't like it . I think it is unsustainable for someone's physical and mental health.

So what's your solution for all the jobs that need to run 24 hours a day? Emergency services would be pretty fucked if everyone decided they only wanted to work 9-5.

Presumably you wouldn't apply for a job with a 4am start then. Other people are fine with it.