I am trying to figure out how to sleep when I’m doing the overnight (midnight to 8 a.m.) work shifts. I am definitely over-thinking this but I can’t seem to figure out what’d be ideal.
I have to be awake for the shifts, so that’s obviously not the time to sleep, but otherwise I need to figure out some sort of schedule that makes sense.
Today is Friday. Tonight I go in to work at 11:50 p.m. and I return home around 8:15 a.m. on Saturday morning.
Tomorrow is Saturday. Tomorrow night I go in to work at 11:50 p.m. and I return home around 8:15 a.m. on Sunday morning.
I want to maximize my awake-with-everyone-else time – so I don’t want to spend all day Saturday or all day Sunday asleep. At the same time, I need to make sure I’m not exhausted for either shift as a result of not getting enough, appropriately-timed, sleep.
My first thought is to break the sleep up – to ‘nap’ from around 6pm to 10:30pm tonight. Work. Come home and sleep from around 9am to 1pm.
But then do I sleep again from 6pm to 10:30 on Saturday night? That only gives me about 5 awake hours on Saturday afternoon which seems very short. On the flip side, I’ll want to go to sleep at my normal 11:30-ish pm on Sunday night so I can wake up at the normal time on Monday morning.
Normally I’m awake for about 16 or 17 hours straight during the day – from a bit before 7 am ’til around midnight – so it would make sense, then, that I could be awake for 8 hours of work and then some more time, right? Except that I don’t get the full sleeping time between shifts and awakedness. And, again, I want to maximize my awake time to correspond with doing things I want to do with the people with whom I’d like to do them.
I want to figure this out before school starts again in September – if I’m keeping this every-other-week overnight shift thing, I need to make it work properly.
This is just stupid.
Factors: I have earplugs that work and can make my bedroom reasonably dark for sleeping. Coffee is fine with keeping the kids from stomping around above me while I rest. I do not have any other obligations this weekend (nothing structured, at least) so I can sleep whenever it makes the most sense. I am clearly over-thinking this. Someone, quick, slap me.
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I’ve done the sleep-twice-a-day thing – 4 hours after my shift, 4 hours before. It worked (disclaimer – I only did it for 3 days running), but I found that it really broke the day up. I did provide me with daytime hours for doing stuff, however.
One way or another, you’re going to lose time with your family. After all, they will be sleeping while you’re working. All you can do is optimize. I’d say sleep until lunch, have lunch with them, then go nap again after dinner.
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my uncle has worked the graveyard shift (11pm-7am sunday night through friday morning) for the past 20 years; he comes home stays awake until around 3pm then sleeps until 10pm giving him 7hrs of sleep.
on the weekends he has his regular schedule but when 3pm Sunday rolls around watch out cause he wants to be in bed! LOL -
I’d say try to come more to terms with the fact that you might end up sleeping during times when your family is doing stuff you don’t want to miss. See if you can relax and little and get into an “it’s not the end of the world if…” attitude toward that part.
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a little
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I am TERRIBLE at the idea of ‘missing’ something. Fun or otherwise. In fact, when I get home from work, regardless of the shift, one of the first things I’m compelled to ask is, “What did I miss?! What happened while I was gone?” I have always been this way – I like to see what’s going on, know what happened, be a part of things.
I feel much better, of course, when Coffee assures me that what I missed was simply work getting done (housework, chores, etc.) or everyone sleeping (in the case of my midnight to 8 am shifts) .. but even then I want to know WHAT work and WHO did it and HOW did it go?!
*sigh*
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You should SEE what you’re missing here RIGHT NOW!! OMG you should totally be here!!! I can’t believe you aren’t here!! This is Soooo cool!!!
(I’m an asshat sometimes eh?)
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I do not like you right now, Sly. ;)
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So that’s the way it’s going to be eh? Keep calling me Sly and I will enroll you in the balloon-bouquet-of-the-month club.
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..and I will commence all communication with you by CLOWN delivery!
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uncle.
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I’m going to keep my clown balloons on hand in case you two ever get out of control.
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(my disclaimer – when I last did shift work, I had no husband, no kids. Only a dog).
I used to get back from work and sleep as long as I could. Normally meant that I’d get from about 7:30 or 8 to 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Then if I needed more sleep, I’d nap again in the evening. I’d pack myself lots and lots of grazing food for the night and drink tea all night.
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Well.. I find that when I have to do the night shifts at the hospital (11pm-7am – my part-time job), I tend to come home and try to sleep until about 1:00ish. I will then get up, do some stuff and if I find myself starting to drag a bit in the evenings, I will try to lie down from about 8-10 to grab a couple of extra hours.
I find the tough part to be the switching back over to “regular” time on Sunday. I usually try to stay up when I get home and maybe take a short nap on Sunday, then head to bed around 11pm so I can get back on track for the full-time job Monday-Friday.
And then there’s the whole getting yourself hopped up on diet Pepsi and chocolate to get through the night! :)
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My new plan? SLEEP IS FOR SUCKAS!
No?
Dammit.
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I used to work the overnight shift.
I was a big fan of just “pretending things were normal”.
So I’d come home from work, have breakfast , hang out, go for a walk, do errands, grocery shopping etc.
Then I’d go to bed in the late afternoon, get up about 11 pm, have a meal, then head to work for midnight.
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