Night shifts are killing me 🥲

[LR97]

I just need some advice please any advice?? I've been a nurse for 2 years I work in children's a&e and work full time rotating shifts. At first the nights did bother me but I've always slept well and managed to get back into a decent sleep pattern pretty quickly!

I usually work 4 nights if I'm doing them, occasionally 3. I'm getting better at sleeping a few hours before my first night and I'm usually pretty good at balancing how much sleep I need after my last night so I can try and get back into a rhythm.

However, for the past few months it's taking me around a week to get back into my normal sleeping pattern. For example I finished nights on Friday morning and the past few nights it's taking me forever to fall asleep and when I do I feel like I'm not in a deep sleep as I'm actively dreaming and I'm waking every hour or so 🥲 right now I'm wide awake and I'm back on a day shift at 07.30am.

Does anybody have any advice please?? I don't know how much longer I can do it, I have a 6 year old and work in a demanding job so I can't afford for my sleep pattern to be taking a week or longer to correct itself! As you can imagine the mood swings can be awful.

Nights are a killer and I think you either cope with them well or you don’t. I’ve done them for 18 years and the older I’ve got the less I cope with them. I’m only part time now so I only do one night at a time but to be honest sometimes split nights are worse than doing a run of them. I’m also pregnant and stay awake after nights to look after my 3 year old so I’m basically knackered all of the time!
Sounds like you are doing all the right things such as trying to get back into day routine etc but I think swapping from nights to days back to nights again is so hard. It’s a well known fact that night workers have a shorter life expectancy. Your only other option would be to go to occupational health and tell them that it is affecting your health and they may recommend that you just do day shifts. However you will lose the unsocial payments so it will make a difference to your pay packet.

Make a flexible working request saying it’s affecting your family life and ask to only do two. (My old job I could have done none but it depends on your manager and I needed the money). I have managed with two since going back to work after maternity. You could ask to fix your shifts so you always get a decent time off after nights - I did mine on a sort of two week rotating rota, and got 4 days off after nights. It worked ok. Just started a new job though so we’ll see!

GP for melatonin.

I always roll my eyes when the sleep experts talk about going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, but often other sleep hygiene advice is good. Warm baths before bed that sort of thing.

Good luck!

Also a paeds nurse, did nights for years and as I got older I found them so hard I just could not recover from them so split them and in the end I stopped doing them, I worked part time so I only did one but it took me weeks to get back to normal. Now work in community so no nights or weekends though.

not as easy to work in community/other areas in paeds, it depends where you live, here you need to get a training position/job as a hv to do your diploma/masters and be a hv I didn’t do the degree so I can’t apply despite 20 years experience as a nurse. But I also money wise is much less in community as b5 as you have no enhancements for nights/weekends so can be hard. Op speak to your management they might refer to occ health but get help and support. I liked nights too as a shift but really busy ones could be tough especially in winter. Hope things improve for you

This. Apparently if you do shift work for too long it really can screw you up. You should possibly research circadian rhythm and investigate getting a natural light clock to wake you

When you come off the final night how long do you sleep in?

I wouldn't let myself sleep more than 3-4 hours no matter how shattered I was, which meant the rest of day was a write off typically due to grogginess, but I would be ready for sleep that night at a reasonable hour. Helps with the reset.

I did find it much harder doing nights after having a child though, it's so tough.

@Emmacb82 yeah it's so difficult at the minute getting back to normality 😭 I've definitely hit a wall now at work, I'm shattered! At my work the turnaround is so fast you could finish nights Monday morning for example and be on a day shift Tuesday! X

@Seagrassbasket yeah I'm definitely going to have a chat with my ward manager etc this week to discuss my options! And 🤣 if only I could go to bed ans wake up at the same time every day, that would be the dream!

@Shopper727 yeah it's so difficult I do love my job I wouldn't want to move anywhere else at this point! A lot of people do move to community nursing but I'm not sure if I would enjoy it! Plus like you said the pay is affected too! Just wish I didn't have to do nights 🤣

@Passingthethyme yeah shift work and rotational work can definitely have health implications it's horrible to think about! X

@Ihatewinding I try my best to only have 3/4 hours sometimes I don't sleep at all! Just really struggling the past few months 😭😭 x