An all time low for a new night shifter

5 I am a new to the night shift and not adjusting well. I have been on night shift since February. The other day after a very long shift, followed by a staff meeting, followed by a traffic filled commute home it happened. I woke up with a slice of pizza stuck to my face. I literally fell asleep at the kitchen table. In my pizza. I am thankful I was too tired to warm it up or the outcome may have been bad.

I am really trying to make this shift work. I am trying to stick to the night schedule on my days off. But I feel like all I do is work and try to sleep. And if I ever get a few days off in a row, all I do is sleep. I was off this weekend, I slept 12 hours each day. On work days, I rarely get more than 4-5 hours of sleep between shifts. On days off, I can't do anything with my family. I am tired all the time.

I have never been a coffee drinker, or soda drinker. Now I am drinking coffee on my days off in an attempt to stay awake to interact with my family. Nothing helps.

Please tell me this will get better. I really like my job, but I am not sure how long I can keep this up. And to make matters worse, I was told when hired that whenever a day shift opens they offer it to us night shifters first, but they just hired 2 new grads that are going to be on days. Now a bunch of coworkers are giving their notice and I am feeling hopeless of ever getting off of nights.
Quote from beekerI woke up with a slice of pizza stuck to my face.

It gets worse, I only woke up because my husband came home from work sick. He witnessed the "incident". Otherwise I may have slept in my pizza all day.

I love night shift but I don't stay on the "night" shift on my days off.. I sleep late the days I go back to work. Wake around 11 and stay awake til the next morning. I sleep from 9 til 3 every day I work the night before and if I am off that night I still go to bed around 10 or 11 with my husband and wake the next day around 10 and get on with my day.. I guess that's my way of catching up on sleep. I tried staying up all night on my nights off but it didn't work for me, so I flip back to a regular schedule.. Some people just can't get used to nights.. Try different things and see if something works for you. If you can't adjust, time to be heard and get moved to days :0

My body just didn't adjust to staying up all night. I felt the same way... tired all the time. I had a hard time sleeping during the day and what sleep I did manage to get felt like it didn't do anything for me. Some folks don't seem to have any trouble adjusting though. My hat is off to them!

I have worked night shift for years and I have to say it will probably not get better. At least that was my experience. I would rather fall asleep in my pizza than to fall asleep at the wheel while driving home. That has happened to me many times. I would reevaluate my need for this job, particularly since the employer reneged on their promise to move you to day shift. To me, that is reason to start looking for a new job. There is no excuse for the employer to hire new grads into day shift when they owed it to you, based on their promise when they hired you. That is how I see it.

I'd be furious about the new grads being hired for days before shifts were offered to night shift. That's a dealbreaker.

May I call you "pizza face"?I worked nights for about 3 years and never really adjusted. I hope things change for you soon.

I HATE night shift. I did not do too well with it. I did do better with either working all 3 in a row or spreading them out. I never stayed on the "night shift schedule" What I did was work, and hit the swimming pool riht after for an hour then home and sleep til 4 pm.. it worked, but it was not ideal.It is not nice that they hired the new grads for days. It may be though that the manager believes that the day shift is going to be able to better absorb the new grads in the mix. Either way, you need to visit in with the manager; let them know you are having a very difficult time with night shift and see what she can offer. She may be able to offer that once the new grads are off orientation for a while they can go to nights, one of them may actually want it- given the differential...Good luck!

Today I had visions of falling asleep in the salad that my wonderful and supportive husband made me. Thank goodness I'm not alone

I hate nightshift. I feel your pain.

Some people can handle nights... some cannot.You described to a "T" (minus the pizza) my personal reaction to night shift.NO job is worth your health and your time with your family. The facility has already told you.. they got you where they want you and day shift is a loooong time coming.Finding another job will be difficult... but not as difficult as your current working conditions.Good luck, keep us posted.

My NM asked me to work nights to cover a night shift nurse that was out "indefinitely". She told me that it would be either 3 months or 6 months max. I was expected to work Monday, Tuesday nights, Thursday day shift ("to keep in the loop, and stay current with the changes of the unit", she said) and every other Friday night. After a year of this bull, I found myself run down, emotional, gaining weight and felt very isolated. I was tired ALL THE TIME, stopped going to social functions because I was so tired, just wanted to sleep....and exercise? What's that?!? I was doing well just getting the basics of housework and grocery shopping done without instantaneously liquefying in the check out line. I finally went to my doctor and told her that I was sick and tired of being tired. She took one look at my schedule and said, "Well of course you are! You have zero circadian rhythm!" She told me I either had to go to straight days or straight nights so I could function like a normal living creature. She even wrote a very specific letter addressed to my NM stating such. When I brought it to my NM, she said, "Oh, well I guess you can't handle this shift, so I suppose I will have to find someone else to cover. But you'll have to wait until I find someone. No one has shown any interest in working nights, so it might be a while." The next day, I started looking at travel companies and signed on shortly thereafter. Although I am glad that I experienced working nights, I quickly found that I am not cut out for it. When I first considered working nights, I was like, "Heck YEAH baby! I get to sleep IN! WOO HOO! No more hitting the alarm clock at 0500! Yay for me!" Oh how wrong I was! I TOTALLY get where you are right now. Email your NM and request 10 minutes of her time. After your meeting, send a follow up email to her briefly stating what you discussed. It might look something like this:Hi Nancy Nurse Manager,I just wanted to clarify what we discussed today regarding my coming off nights and going to day shift. I expressed that I was disappointed that our new hires were given day shift spots. When I was hired, my recollection was that the day shift openings would be offered to the night shifters first. You explained that XYZ...yada yada. Please let me know if I understood everything correctly. I appreciate your taking time to discuss this with me today. Respectfully,YouBy doing this, you are creating documentation of both your request for a meeting, and what was discussed in the meeting, along with her reply. If you are communicating via hospital email, copy and paste each correspondence into your private email. I know it sounds a little paranoid, but I have had to pull up old emails to present to a manager who swore up and down that she never stated such and such. You are also subconsciously letting your NM know that you aren't a push-over and you have documentation to prove your discussions--you mean business, and you are being professional while showing some moxie. I apologize for the long drawn out reply. I hope things get better. I have been where you are, and it can seem defeating. Please keep us posted on your progress. Hugs to you!