Any fellow night shift workers?

laurapaine2003@yahoo.com

Im so drained from working half night shifts and half day shifts. For nights I work 6pm to 6am - brutal. LO wakes at 6am for the day so I go straight into taking care of her till she goes to bed at 6pm... Which is when I start work again. I do work from my home office but it is shift work so I'm on call and have to actually work... Lol when people hear I work from home they think I can make my own schedule - nope. Just wondering if there are other night shift workers out there - how long have you been doing it and do you plan to keep doing it for many more years? Im stuck because I make excellent money so I won't quit - but these night shifts make my life positively miserable and I'm very drained and lethargic with LO all day

rjanice

Im currently on days but I did 7p-730a for 6 years.  I found out i was pregnant with baby #2 on my 3rd day of orientation. So my whole pregnancy and up till a year ago I worked the dark side.  It was rough, which is actually an understatement. Noone understood how hard it was or why I  was always tired. I mean I  "only worked 3 nights" is what I heard so many times.  I would wake up Sunday morning with the kids be up all day, leave for work at 620p, bust my butt all night on the crazy telemetry floor i work on,  come home by hopefully 815a, get my oldest off to school and hope I had a sitter for the baby which i usually didn't.  Id pray he took 2 good naps and i was up by 3p no matter what to pick up my oldest from school.  Made dinner,  did homework then left for work at 620p again. This was life Sunday through Wednesday.  I was miserable,  exhausted and straight up mean. The kids nicknamed me "mean mommy" and hubby declared Wednesdays "Angry Wednesday" since by Wednesday i was a complete terror to be around due to my constant sleep deprivation. My brain was like sludge. The first year of baby#2 was/is a huge blur.  Between feeling like a zombie and ppd, i barely remember any of it. 

I'm on days now and I'm still tired at times but i no longer feel like a walking zombie and I  miss the extra money, but I by no means will ever go back to the dark side. Hugs to you. I completely understand the struggle. I have no real helpful tips.  Sleep when you can and coffee coffee coffee! 

ForeverEverAfter

When I had DD1 I worked alternating days/nights (7-7, days Wed/Thurs, nights Fri-Sun, days Mon/Tues, nights Wed/Thurs, etc). It was so exhausting!!! I had worked it for years without a problem pre-kids. In my third tri I was placed on days only to help control my HG, but had to go back to nights rotation afterwards. I traded shifts whenever I could, and after 5 months I moved to a new job. We didn't have reliable childcare, and DH does shifts too, so it was just too stressful. I could only get coverage for my shift, and not for sleeping. I was often locking myself in DD1's room (child proofed) with her and sleeping on the floor the morning after nights, and then napping with her in the afternoon also. 

tlc11934

@laurapaine2003@yahoo.com may I ask what you do?  I'm looking for a work from home position that pays well.  I'm a night owl, so this sounds ideal to me.  I wouldn't be able to take care of DD all day, though.  I give you a lot of credit!