Posted: 11/9/2007 4:39:14 AM EDT
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After almost 7 years on 2nd shift (1400hrs-0000hrs) I am moving to 3rd shift (2200hrs-0800 hrs). What advice can anyone give me concerning changing sleep patterns, especially those officers who have small school-age children at home in the afternoon. Yes, I did choose to move because it meant promotion to the dreaded "butter bar" (lieutenant).  Thanks for any serious advice  .
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I am not LEO, but I work graveyard at a DATA center 2300-0900. I have school age children, that I pick up from school everyday The key to all of it, when you get off work... Force yourself to sleep at least 4 hours. I do this and then get up and pick up the kids from school and spend time with the family and then sleep a couple more hours and then get up and go to work. I usually end up having one really heavy sleep day, then I am good again. It is rough but it can be done Been doing it for 3yrs now, the last 7 months I have been working 7days a week. I am greedy I want the O/T so I can pay off bills and debt. I am almost there |
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Good luck. Nights are tough. I work 2100 to 0700. I sleep from about 0900 to 1700 or so. I tend to wake up for an hour around noon and then sleeping till 1800 or so. Get some 100% light blocking shades for the sleeping quarters, it helps, a lot. I work out before work when I can, it helps me sleep in the morning. Even if it's just a jog on the treadmill for 20 min. Exercise is my best advice. It helps reduce stress and lets you sleep more soundly. Our profession has enough hazards. Do yourself and your partners a favor and stay healthy 
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This also works for me. I went back to midnights last year when I got my stripes. I have a spare bedroom in the basement that I sleep in to keep me as far away from my kids as possible. I taped black posterboard over the windows, and run a noise maker which sounds like a summer night. I work 2300-0700 and sleep from 0800-1400 or so. Then if I'm still tired I'll close my eyes from 2000-2200 if necessary. And for those days that I want to get a good solid 8 hours I will pop a couple of benadryls. They do the trick nicely. Good luck and congratulations |
+1 Black out your room, you can buy "sheets" of aluminum insulation at Home Depot/Lowes that wedge into your window opening for really cheap. Also try to get to bed as soon as possible and turn your phone off. The first week will kick your ass but after a few days it gets easier. |
A little white noise (a fan) and breakfast before turning in helped me get to sleep. 
| There's no way around it. You're body is going to pay. Regardless of what folks say, working nights is not normal for the human body to adapt to & it will wear you out eventually. I used to work 2100-0700 for several years & I had to make a move due to burn out & I'm in excellent physical condition despite a couple chronic injuries. Do what the others have said about blacking out your hootch when you get home in the a.m. to aid in getting to sleep after you get your rugrats to school. Try to get the same amount of sleep each day & stay in great shape. Your meal habits will change which will also make it tough, but try to eat right. Take a multi vitamin, stay away from caffeine & try to get some sun when you can while remaining active after you get up. Congrats on the bars. I just picked up a pair as well. |
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I work at a chemical plant, 1800-0600. Black out your room and keep it cool. Go to sleep as soon as you get home. Just a mind game I guess, doing that I convince myself I am not really working nights, I just stayed out really, really late. Makes it more of a 6 hour time shift instead of a 12 hour time shift. It works for me. Scott |
| Oh yeah, forgot to add, be careful of going to "regular" time on your days off. Some people can go "normal" on their days off and then back to midnights on your work days. I tired staying up all night on my days off-kicked my ass and couldn't find things to do. (before I found arfcom!) |
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I agree with the above... I work 2200-0800 for 4 weeks, then day shift for 2 weeks. I go to sleep as soon as I come home (usually crash around 0900), I have blackout curtains and a noise machine. I prefer the summer rain noise. My kid goes to day care when I'm asleep, and I pick him up when I wake up and spend the evening with him. It is a great schedule for spending time with him. I agree, if you've only got a short time off before you go back to work, stay up at night. Try to maintain the same schedule, or at least stay up late (3 or 4) before crashing. This will make it much easier to get back in the groove on night shift. , I'll admit, based on the title I thought this thread was gonna talk about favorite nap spots, etc... haha I plead the fifth but sometimes it helps when the above advice doesn't go right! |
That is what I usually do. No kids in the house, no wife... but the 4 & 2 sleep sched works for me. I've been on graveyards for over 20 years now. |
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Go to sleep as soon as you get home. Don't watch TV, use the computer, or start working on anything before you lay down. You'll find it harder to fall asleep if you do. I bought a pull down shade that blocks most of the light. They also make heavy duty curtains that do the same thing. I leave the fan on for white noise and turn off the phones. Once you get in a habit, stick to it or it will take a few more days to get back to your routine. On my days off, I stay up half the night and sleep late to keep from disturbing the routine too much. It may take a while for your family to get used to your shift as well. My wife used to wonder why I didn't get a chance to take care of stuff since I was at home all day. I get cranky when I work mids but my wife is real understanding about it as long as I don't take it too far. |
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We-ll .................... Been doing the mid shift, 0 to 0800 for the last 15 years. My sleep schedule shifts per season since I also take classes. That's the easy part. I also report to a second group of bosses and then there is family, so occassionally, I must use alternate techniques for their accomplishment. Nutshell to follow on that. Over the years, the body has told me that if it gets 5 hours a day continous or 6 hours broken, it can continue. Less than that and I'm looking at a major sleep crash in a day or two. So it is 5 hours during the week with often massive rechargings during the weekends. Not every weekend is like that but often, I go home on Friday and don't exit my apartment till I have to head back to work on Sunday night. Nutshell of problems and their solutions. If you are into tv, get a recorder and sufficient storage capability. It may be years after the series has ended that you catch up with it. I think my constant watching of Charmed stopped at "Oh My Godness" and the switching of The X-Files to Sunday night killed it for me since on that evening, I should be in preparation to the week. Things are going to pile up, such as mail. Handle the vital mail as much as possible. The non vital stuff, well, you will eventually get around to it. If you don't have two or three, buy more shredders. I have an intneresting situation when there is family event coming up. I can either sleep all the time, the "regular" and the normal day people schedule .................. and nothing gets done or I can try to catch up with chores and end up exhausted at affairs. For the time when I did the latter, I used my dance and other training to lock my legs and catch seconds of sleep here and there (I was pushing my mother around a museum when she was in a wheel chair). People tell me that I inherited my infantry father's ability to catch quick moments of sleep. If so, well, any chance at sleep is welcomed. The need for sleep comes before food: HOWEVER, if the next job is where you are responsible for people's lives and you don't want risk a missed meal for energy requirements, then you eat before you sleep. Since most of us aren't in polar climates, this can lead to weight gain. Beware of it. And this is all said from the single person's point of view. How do I sleep during the day? Essentially, I just do. HOWEVER, two mental exercises I use to bring on sleep. One, I am on the research trawler and I go thru, bit by bit, how to minimlaize my weight packing to maximize my mission. Ie what software I want, what meduim it is on, what all I carry ....... which in that scenario focues around a field pack and in addition to everything else, where do I put my sidearm, maybe the AR rifle. Note: it helps to have been on research trawler and be able to associate the ship rocking with that exercise. The second one is to consider a disaster situation, I'm the responder incharge, and focus in detail on an aspect of it. It may be perimeter troop deployment for an air crash or the protection of children in a tsunami. They are scenarios I come back to, time and time again, but in that instant of wanting sleep, going thru them in such detail delivers sleep. _____________________________________________ (A coffee mug of the 80's; Wide eye, whiskers up, smiling cats with balloons that say COFFEE! ..................until you get to the last one, droopy eyelids, down whiskers, sagging balloon that says Sleep!, (w,stte), situation as so described) |
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+1 for dark, cool room with "white noise". I worked 3rds throwing cans at a grocery store during college (Actually splits - Su-Th 2200-0600 and fri sat 1600-2200). I'd come home in the am, drop the GF at work then come home and sleep. A 2nd hand a/c provided cool and noise - which helped, since the building was kitty corner from an elementary school... |
| Been working 3rds for the past 5 years. Everyone is on the right track with blacking out your room. I use the pulldown shades over the windows and keep the bedroom door closed to keep the kids out. I try to get into bed by 8 and normally sleep till 4 barring any court appearances. On the weekends when the family is around I sometimes put earplugs in so I don't hear the little one running up and down the stairs. I actually like it. |
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I worked 1st shift for 10 years until I got bumped to dayshift. I bought a set of room darkening shades from HomeDepot or Menards. I have a 5yoa and a 7yoa so what I did was get home, get the gang off to school and wife off to work, ate a light breakfast and then went to bed. I woke up around 1530 waited until the girls got home at 1600 and did my daily stuff. At night I would get the girls to bed around 2030 and then nap until it was time to get up for work. FWIW I still hate days and I really don't like sleeping at night. I would do just about anything to get back on mids but the lowest person on mids has 15 years in and I only have 11. |
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good advice here all around. i have a white noise machine i keep in the bedroom. i dont black out my room, but i have never needed to. i rotate from days to nights every week. goes like this 12 hours shifts, 6 to 6, three days on, 3 days off. example is monday (nights) tuesday (nights) wednesday (nights) thursday (off) friday (off) saturday (off) sunday (days) monday (days) tues (days) wednesday (off) and so on and so on. difficult to get used to but plenty time off |
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This is what works for me. I work from 0000 to 0800 and then after a 30 min. drive home, I drink a glass of water while searching the active topics on Arfcom. By then it is nearing 0900 and I go to bed. I try to do this every day, without alteration. If I know that I have overtime scheduled during the week, I start staying up a little later a day or two ahead. I sleep daily untill I have to get up, or I wake up on my own. IMO, it is the best shift going. After 5 years, my wife and I can't hardly sleep on the weekends anymore. Of course, that could be because I worked seven days a week for most of that time untill about 8 months ago. Bottom line: get in a routine and stick with it. Religously. And, Sunday nights suck! |
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I work 2 nights 18:30-06:30, off for 24 hours and work 06:30 to 18:30 for 2 days. I've always been a night owl so sleeping during the day has never been a problem for me. I turn the ringer down on the phone and sometimes go right to bed when I get home or stay up for a while. I usually get up around dinner time and try and grab an hour before I go back to work. I love working backshift. |
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I hear about everyone blacking out their rooms. While sleeping in the light has never been quite a problem for me, when it has been, I just take one of my bandanas and tie myself a blindfold. ________________________________________________ ("Mornin, Captain."--Sailor to Army Captain Willard as the latter pulls the bandana from his eyes, (w,stte), "Apocolypse Now") |
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I work 3rd watch (1900-0400). I am able to fall directly to sleep when I get home (I drive 20 minutes to get home and unwind during that stretch). I also am able to take off at about 0330 most days and therefore am in bed by 0405 hours. I sleep until 11 or noon (depending on bladder) and then get up and do my husbandly duties (fart around on the computer/pay bills etc.,) until I pick up the children from school at 3 p.m.. I do the daddy/homework thing (kids are 6 and 9) and then take a 1/2 or full hour nap before cooking dinner and then leaving for work. Others I work with can't fall straight to sleep (one most likely because he sleeps so much at work, and the other because he works out after work and is wide awake). They end up going to bed about 8 or 9 a.m.. They end up sleeping the day away and not doing much with the family or wife. I'm lucky in that my ability to drop straight off to sleep allows me to have the afternoon with my wife and kids. Good luck with your schedule. Lt.'s usually can just drive home for a nap around here, what is your excuse? Haha. |
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Sleep for an hour half way through you shift and sell the kids. Wife and dog too if necessary...... I used to do 7 straight nights 1000-0600 then 2 days off and back on 5 lots of 1400-2200. It wsa not nice and we don't do that anymore. With us , any promotion above Sgt. guarantees a fairly cushy shift system, only covering nights maybe a couple or three times a year..and that's only Inspectors. Past that you're a Mon-Fri 9-5 person.. 
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I don't live in the city and it would be hard to explain to the Chief why he was able to get to a major scene from his home outside town quicker than the Lt on duty at the time .Thanks for everyone's input. I'm doing ok so far but its only been a few days. |
| I work from 7pm-7am and I sleep from 7:30am-3:30pm to get my 8 hours sleep in. It took a little getting used to though. If you have kids then I would try to sleep before they get home from school, and maybe take a quick power nap before work if you need to. I've also found that working out keeps me awake also. I try to hit the gym before work. And during work I do pushups and situps when i can. I also keep a dumbell in my car as well. It gets the blood flowing. |
im on nights as well. i work 3 on 4 off. then 4 on 3 off for the 14 day pay period. my shift is 6p-6a. i go to bed around 8am and get up at 230p. i usually sleep right through even with the wifey making all kinds of noise.
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I do the 2200 - 0600 shift. I love it. Like everyone else, my bedroom is darkened, and I have a small fan for white noise to block out the normal household noise generated by the "day walkers" that share my space. I stay up when I get home, and do my running around. It's great having the stores all to myself. I usually get to bed around 1000. around 0930, I take a melatonin tablet. It takes about 30 minutes to take effect, and I get drowsy. I get a good 8 hours sleep, and get up around 1900. I have supper with the family, and visit a bit before it's time to get ready for work. Nights work well for me. I wouldn't want to work any other shift. YMMV... |
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I've been working straight mids for about 3 years now, 2300-0700. I get home and go right to sleep until about 1230, then I'm till 0700 again, unless I decide to nap out in the evening before shift. Mama works 1330-2200, and I take care of our daughter. Mids are gunna kill me, but I either gotta do it or go broke paying for childcare, which I sure as hell ain't gunna do. I keep reminding myself that there's only 4 more years till kindergarten! |
I just spit coffee into my keyboard...
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