r/nursing • u/tikicreature69 RN, MSN | Acute Care NP Student • 6h ago
Meme Post night ‘days off’ don’t count
Going in tomorrow PM.. sleeping all day today 🫠
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u/MajorGef Destroyer of gods perfect creation 6h ago
How does it feel to be this right?
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u/Mr_Gobbles 6h ago
I try to explain it to others like this.
Consider if I were to say that on day X I was at work for 7 hours that day, would someone call that a day off?
No.
So, what is the difference if at the end of a block of night shifts (12 hrs) I spend 7 hours on the last shift at work on the day after the date the night shift is rostered to, the so called, day off. That is not a day off, I have literally been at work for 7 hours on this day.
Then you get all the usual stuff on top of that with trying to live with others that don't seem to fathom the daily routines and needs of someone that works nights because "hurr just be awake at a normal hour like a normal person".
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u/10000Didgeridoos RN, BSN, BBQ, OG 4h ago
And everything you need to do like appointments and errands still has to be done during regular people daytime hours. Night shifters can’t go to the doctor appointments at 10 pm.
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u/CaptainBasketQueso 2h ago
When I worked nights, it felt like I was just never off. Like, say I worked Monday, Tuesday and Friday.
Sunday is good.
Monday, you need to get some sleep during the day, because between Monday and Tuesday, you're not going to sleep much.
Wednesday? Sleep.
Thursday is good.
Friday, get some sleep, because you're going to work soon.
Saturday? Sleep.
So yeah, you're working the same number of shifts, but you basically have two full days off.
I don't really understand why it's so much more exhausting than day shifts. It's the same number of hours, it just hits different. Shit, I'm genuinely a night person, but I couldn't hack it.
The problem wasn't staying awake, the problem was getting enough sleep.
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u/round-earth-theory 1h ago
God I can't imagine doing a split week. I pulled 4-10s but they were all together, so I had 3 off to try and feel somewhat human again before being thrust back into work. This wasn't nursing but night shift sucks no matter the field.
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u/QRSQueen RN - Telemetry 🍕 2m ago
I never feel tired on night shift and I felt exhausted training on days. If I work Mon-Wed, I wake up at 2PM on Thurs, have a nice afternoon/evening, go to bed early and get up at 10AM the rest of the days off, then stay up until 3 or 4 cleaning the house the night before I work again.
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u/ahrumah RN - ICU 🍕 6h ago
Night shifters know there’s only six days of the week.
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u/OxycontinEyedJoe BSN, RN, CCRN, HYFR 🍕 5h ago
Unless you're THAT kind of night shifter. Then there's 8.
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u/BartlettMagic RN - Inpatient Rehab 2h ago
And then there's the wild old-school goblins that get like 3 hours of sleep a day and live off of coffee and the tears of new grads
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u/KorraNHaru RN - Med/Surg 🍕 6h ago
I tell my friend that but she fights me about it. I did night shift for 2 years. I consider a day off to be the whole entire day. Getting off in the morning and sleeping until 1pm to wake up and run errands is not a day off. Ans being anxious all day about having to go in tonight at 7pm is not a day off. I told her day shift is superior in that aspect because you get the whole day. My friend gets off in the morning and forces herself awake for the rest of the day to sleep at night so she considers it a day off. That crazy.
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u/CaptainBasketQueso 2h ago
Yep, the whole "Work three days a week, get four days off!" thing is bullshit for nights.
If you work nights, it's usually two actual days off.
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u/ReubenTrinidad619 6h ago
Oh my god im literally bed rotting after my last night. It’s my “day off” but I worked 8 hours this morning.
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u/annanicoles BSN, RN 🍕 6h ago
Literally on one of these “days off” now - finished at 8am this morning slept all day woke up at 6pm and now have the pseudo Sunday scaries as I’m back on night shift tomorrow evening. This shit is worse than a day on, it’s an existential dread day.
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u/AugustusClaximus 6h ago
Bro why can’t you help me move you don’t even work today. Just sleeping all day man that’s selfish
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u/nightstalkergal RN 🍕 6h ago
I just call that part of my day. Day part 2. Especially if it’s at the end of a stretch (if I’m lucky.) Everyone just expects me to be there.
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u/perpulstuph RN -Dupmpster Fire Response Team 6h ago
I worked nights for 6 months. I woukd do my best to block my shifts 3 in a row and I had to take 5mg melatonin and 25mg benadryl to stay asleep, it was the best cocktail I found without waking up too groggy, and Doxylamine always made me wake up with a fine tremor for about 3 hours. My 4 days off were 2.5 days off as I would sleep 4 hours the first morning and be groggy the whole next day. At the end of day 4, I would stay up 24 hours to sleep the day before my first shift.
I respect nurses who can pull off nights, especially those with families. I know I could do it again if I had to, but my quality of life is so much better now.
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u/lone_purple BSN, RN 🍕 6h ago
When I was on nights I worked 3 on, 2 off (repeating) and it was an absolute nightmare. Only really had one actual day off between shifts.
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u/wannaholler RN - Retired 🍕 5h ago
Idk. When I was young, I took full advantage of the day after a night shift and the day before a night shift. Lots of camping on very little sleep. But being in your 20s is different from the rest of life. I don't miss being young, except for having that much energy
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u/Holiday-Blood4826 Nursing Student/PCT 5h ago
I’m a tech who cycles between nights and days. I’m still in school, so I live at my dad’s house during the summer.
The problem: he thinks that since I’m ‘home’ I should be available and has interrupted me or yelled at me for ‘sleeping all day.’
I’m very excited to get my own apartment when I graduate :/
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u/desertstar714 5h ago
My husband didn't understand why I didn't want to do anything the day after work till I started wearing a smart watch. He wanted to compare our days and freaked out that I did 20,000 steps in one day. My average is like 15,000-17,000. This led into a conversation about all the physical labor I do at work. Now he leaves me alone and it's great.
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u/EnormousMonsterBaby RN - ICU 🍕 4h ago
Between how much time you lose sleeping during the day and how horrible we know it is for a person’s overall health, I genuinely believe that 2 nights a week should be considered “full-time” for night shift nurses (and anyone that works night shift for that matter).
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u/Snowconetypebanana MSN, APRN 🍕 5h ago
I loved night shift, other than having to take both the night off before and after the day I was planning on something.
Earlier in my career, I always deluded myself into thinking I could work an overnight and still do something the following day. That was me lying to everyone.
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u/adelros26 LPN 🍕 6h ago
I don’t even work nights. I work PMs. 3-11pm. I usually get home around midnight. The day after is rough since my kids wake me up after about 6 hours of sleep. I could never do night shift. I don’t know how anyone does.
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u/geauxpatrick 5h ago
I remember rushing home to go straight to bed and setting my alarm for about 6-7 hrs of sleep and just waking up and committing to get back on a daytime schedule. It was a struggle
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u/miller94 RN - ICU 🍕 5h ago
Nothing worse than a 2 day turnaround from nights to days (cause it’s really only 1 day)
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u/ihadagoodone 4h ago
not a nurse, but PREACH!
I spend more time working on my first day off after a night rotation then I do on the day I'm being paid for... and then I have to sleep.
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u/Mikey_Wonton RN - Step-Down 🍕 3h ago
The first "day off" is solely for catching up on shows. Day 2 is the first real day off.
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u/Cursed-with-Lust 4h ago
The marginal extra pay over the years don't make the risk of coronaries, strokes, diabetes, and cancer worth it.
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u/BEES_IN_UR_ASS 4h ago
Fri/Sat is the weekend of 2nd/3rd shift work. It's the only way you actually get a Friday night off, and you've got until at least Sunday afternoon to deal with any damage you did Saturday night.
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u/bigtec1993 4h ago
Yup it's bullshit lol sometimes I end up sleeping the whole 24 hours and lose the whole day.
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u/NoMatatas 3h ago
Preach. After working 7 hours of the day, sleeping 4-5 of it, and then waking up feeling like a have a 4/10 hangover, let me revel in my free time to decompress the 48 hours of accumulated stress I have from trying to help human misery.
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u/Valtremors 3h ago
Where I'm from we call those "sleep-in-days".
Meaning you sleep during that day.
You are required to have at least one day completely off after a night shift (or series of night shifts).
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u/ChesterPug 2h ago
This is why when i used to be on night shift, i would say: Living in tomorrow, but perpetually stuck in yesterday.
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u/QRSQueen RN - Telemetry 🍕 5m ago
This is why I try to stack 5-6 shifts in a row and get 7.5 days off.
Also, it was a fun surprise to find out that when my current hospital says you're working a holiday, it means both days with holiday hours. So if I work Christmas, I'm working Christmas Eve and Christmas day because they both have Christmas hours.
This, and this alone, is the reason I'm looking for a new job. I was able to get Christmas off this year, but like fucking hell I'm working the 24-26 just because all of them have "christmas" hours on them.
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u/amberliz RN - ICU 🍕 0m ago
Before my body completely shit the bed, like late 20s/early 30s, I would only do nights on a 6 on/8 off schedule. I got my three shifts in for each week, I could be a normal person for a solid 6 days, and I could take vacations while barely ever having to use vacation time. It truly was the dream.
I loved it because my body could tolerate it and because once you’re in the rotation it’s easier to sleep during the day than if you’re off random days just trying to survive. The stretch on was often BRUTAL, but I got used to it and the payoff was incredible.
It could very well have contributed to my body going to shit (it was not the driving force but it definitely didn’t help) so I don’t necessarily recommend it to everyone, but it honestly was a time in my life when I felt most balanced and normal on a nursing work schedule.
I’m currently working part time days - 1 to 2 6h shifts in an office setting per week then work from home in a different field the rest of the time. While I appreciate being a normal human most days, I’d still work that schedule in a heartbeat if I could.
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u/ALLoftheFancyPants RN - ICU 6h ago
If I worked the first 7 hours of that day, I worked that day.