Working Third Shift - Sleeping Strategies

NealRomeoGolf

NealRomeoGolf

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We are 60 days out from a possible UAW strike. If it does happen, I get to live out of a hotel 100 miles from here and work third shift in the factory. I've never done shift work so I don't know anything about sleeping strategies for the weekends when I go home and see my family.

I would leave work at 7am on Friday morning (shifts are 11p to 7a starting the week on Sunday night) and drive the 100 minutes home. Do I then wait for my kids to get home from school at 4pm, say hello and then hit the hay at 6? Do I just draw it out further and go to bed at 9 and then convert for 2 nights back to first shift and then try to nap on Sunday afternoon before heading back to work? Or do I keep my sleep on third shift time and see the family only a few hours a day?

I'm not looking forward to this. I hope the strike is short.

Any sleep strategies for those that have done shift work?
 
:eek:

I'm happy to give you a referral.
 
kaiser said:
:eek:

I'm happy to give you a referral.
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At least I get a 7% premium for working nights. And if they are handing out OT, I'm taking a ton of it. I need to build up my airplane fund again. Time and a half at my rate.....will be nice.
 
My wife works overnights. She gets home around 7-730 and sleeps until 2-4. She drinks coffee and then we’ll usually go to the gym, eat dinner around 6 then she’ll take a 2 hour nap before going to back work at 9. Melatonin may help but I suspect you probably won’t need it.
 
My wife just came off 2 months on night shift. It was hard on all of us. The best advice I can give is to pick a routine and stick with it weekdays and weekends. My wife did great for the first month, sticking to a strict schedule. Then she got off the schedule a bit, then a bit more. Within a week was a physical and mental mess followed by a raging cold. Our bodies do not respond well to random sleep habits.

A bit of personal advice, get a light mask. I've used a simple, soft, goggle-like eye mask. It kind of looks like a tiny bra. Earplugs can help too.
 
I was an overnight pharmacist at Walgreens many years back. I worked 7on-7off Monday (PM) through Sunday(AM). I always switched sleep schedules back and forth because we had a young family and there was always a lot of things going on.

The schedule that seemed to work the best for me was to start the first day ON, wake up normally and stay up for 24 hours (work 10pm to 8am). By the time I hit the bed after the first night on there was no problem with sleep (Make sure you have a dark, dark room and earplugs). During my ON weeks I would sleep from 9am to generally around 3-5pm. Then wake up and try to be normal until time to head back to work at 9:30pm. Getting off on Monday morning for my off week, I would try to stay up as long as possible. Maybe take a real short nap in the morning or afternoon and then go to bed at a normal bedtime. That way I would generally be back on a decent daytime schedule within 24 hours. That first day off always sucked though.

One thing that I cannot stress enough is to be CAREFUL driving during your ON week, especially that drive home the first day off. Reaction and processing time is just way off and I had some close calls.
 
One of my friends has spent his career as a night shift worker at a major airline. Generally what he does is get home, nap for a few hours, caffeinate through the rest of the day, and try to go to bed at a "normal" time (probably a bit early). Then try to sleep in late the morning before going back to work, maybe get a nap if there's an opportunity, and caffeinate through the night.

One of the keys sleeping wise is making sure that you can block out enough sun so that you don't get woken up during daylight hours. A lot of hotels have poor curtains that won't block out the light well at all, and your body will try to wake up once it sees light.

Taking overtime (probably on the "early" side since that's when you'll likely be up anyway) would definitely be worth doing in such a situation. But, hopefully a strike can be avoided.
 
Team keep the same schedule until night shift (strike ) is over. I had to do it for a couple years and shifting sleep schedules never worked. Ymmv, especially if you are young
 
Randomskylane said:
Team keep the same schedule until night shift (strike ) is over. I had to do it for a couple years and shifting sleep schedules never worked. Ymmv, especially if you are young
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Define young. :D

Compared to many here I am. But I don't consider myself young anymore.
 
If it’s anything like the Deere strike I wouldn’t expect any manufacturing to really get accomplished. I think having people work is more for show than actually producing things. But that aside, the only way I’ve found to make third shift work is to reverse my schedule and stick to it. Everyone that I’ve known that tries to jump around and switch schedules for the weekend and then go back for the weekdays ends up sleep deprived and is continually tired. Switching schedules gets even tougher as you age. I’ve been working 2nd shift for close to 20 years now and even a slight adjustment in my schedule to work days instead is causing me more sleep problems as I get older.
 
I worked "graveyard shift" away from home for two summers when I was in college. For the second summer, I kept the same sleeping hours on my days off as on work days, and I was a MUCH happier camper. However, I wasn't going home on weekends, which made it easier to do.
 
I used to bake donuts overnight. Slept until 1 or 2 pm. That’s when my day began. Really tough to flip flop your times - you will not feel right for any of the time. Stick to that schedule until you can have a shift to regular times.
 
Not gonna lie, I did the days/nights switcheroo on a 4/2 or 6/3 schedule for a little over two years. That was living/working onsite with no family distractions and a sizable percentage of the workforce being night shift workers, which made day sleeping easy. I later spent about 800hrs flying the 3rd shift.

I was in my early 20s to mid-30s and each year it got harder to swap from day sleeping to night sleeping on the days off. I’m 49 now and you couldn’t pay me enough to go to 3rd shift but I’d certainly do second shift in a heartbeat.

The last thing I’d try to do at the end of working a week of nights would be drive 100 miles and try to re-integrate with my family for 48 hrs on their time.
 
I worked a night shift for a few years. I slept from 7-8am to about 2pm. It's best if you can maintain your sleep schedule and have the family work around you. Of course I'm in Church on Sunday mornings so I'd generally get to bed a bit early and then catch a nap that afternoon before heading back to work on Sunday night.

Working to keep your altered sleep hours consistent will help keep you rested and sane. Make sure wherever you are sleeping is dark & quiet as much as possible. It takes a bit to get used to it but once you get synced to that time period it does get easier to maintain.

Or you can just, "eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired." :D
 
Quit. It's just not worth what nights do to you.
If plan A isn't an option, at least learn how to silence all phones within earshot.
 
DON’T do it.




<——please don’t read below this line until after you’re done working the third shift——>


I told you so.
 
Quitting would mean moving (can't make what I make here for anyone but my current employer). Working 3rd shift for a month should be way less painful than moving, no?
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
Quitting would mean moving (can't make what I make here for anyone but my current employer). Working 3rd shift for a month should be way less painful than moving, no?
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ah, the “it’s only for a month” shpiel, riiiiight….
 
Been on thirds for almost 10 years now, and did seconds for another 12 years. You have two options. Option one is what I do. I get home about 8:30 in the morning and work until about 1400 around the house, doing errands ect. Hit the bed at 1400 and get up about 2130, out the door for the plant at 2200. Option two, which many of my coworkers do, is hit the bed as soon as they get home, and are up about 1600 to do errands and the like.

Don't flip schedules on the off days, keep the same one. It's way easier on you and much less stressful. One other thing to help, is lay off anything with caffeine after about 4 am, unless you simply can't function. It will help you get into the cycle quicker. Also with a long commute, especially in the winter time, make sure you have plenty of water and snacks in the car with you. I once left work in a slight sleet storm and ended up needing almost 4 hours to get home, and I only live about 35 miles from the plant. Watch your sleepyness and find a place to stop and nap if you have to on the way home.
 
I’ve worked various shift work and tried different rotation of my schedule for years! By far the most detrimental to my sleep, overall physical and mental health was the strategy of flip flopping my schedule around for days off.

If you know you’re going, stick to one thing. You’ll be glad you did. I used to get off work, crash, and wake up mid to late afternoon.

As other have suggested, I used ear plugs but added some form of white noise, normally a fan. I didn’t use a sleep mask, but my room was set up with thick curtains to cut all the light.

In our old house I slept in the basement… that was rough with heavy footed kids. Our new house, we had a 2nd floor bedroom, so kids hung out below.

You’ll figure out what works best for you. But for my mileage, the constant sleep pattern worked far better than day on/day off swapping sleep patterns or schedules that requires loading up caffeine and power naps


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
Quitting would mean moving (can't make what I make here for anyone but my current employer). Working 3rd shift for a month should be way less painful than moving, no?
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You don’t have to quit, but you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Humans are diurnal, so you need to fake daylight (why casinos never have a clock) during awake times and erase daylight during sleep times. Just staying awake can be fatiguing while you’re also battling your natural circadian rhythm.

Just about the time of the week you’re getting acclimated to being a vampire, swapping back to being a night sleeper is going to throw your body into a fit.

Best idea for weekends is to keep the same sleep pattern during the workweek and bring the family to you during your new normal awake time. Sucks, but they’re better rested overall and will be in better shape to make the trek.

Or, treat it like a work trip and visit via FaceTime. Besides the 100-mi commute over the weekend and/or hotel stays plus your food bill during the workweek (and taxes) is going to eat up all the overtime pay anyways, so make that budget and see if the juice is worth the squeeze.
 
In a hotel, what has worked best for me is staying up, have breakfast, workout, get day chores done, then go to bed about 10 hours before the shift starts. It also lets housekeeping make up your room daily.

keep the schedule over the weekend.
 
Ted said:
One of my friends has spent his career as a night shift worker at a major airline. Generally what he does is get home, nap for a few hours, caffeinate through the rest of the day, and try to go to bed at a "normal" time (probably a bit early). Then try to sleep in late the morning before going back to work, maybe get a nap if there's an opportunity, and caffeinate through the night.

One of the keys sleeping wise is making sure that you can block out enough sun so that you don't get woken up during daylight hours. A lot of hotels have poor curtains that won't block out the light well at all, and your body will try to wake up once it sees light.

Taking overtime (probably on the "early" side since that's when you'll likely be up anyway) would definitely be worth doing in such a situation. But, hopefully a strike can be avoided.
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That's exactly what I do on nights. Try and get a nap on night shift, come home and sleep for a few hours. Like a 4 and 4 to get 8 hrs sleep. I know some that just reverse their sleep cycle completely and stay up at night and sleep all day. I don’t like that technique because it messes up my off time.
 
You learn to sleep like a cat. Except with more waking hours than sleeping hours. Grab twenty minutes here, ten minutes there. Maybe an hour if you're lucky.

But that is how I sleep anyway.
 
TCABM said:
Besides the 100-mi commute over the weekend and/or hotel stays plus your food bill during the workweek (and taxes) is going to eat up all the overtime pay anyways
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While on strike duty, all mileage beyond your regular distance to the office is reimbursable at the going IRS rate. Breakfast and dinner is paid for by the company. I will be eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch.
 
eman1200 said:
ah, the “it’s only for a month” shpiel, riiiiight….
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Deere's strike went 6 weeks. Case is on month 8 with no end in sight. I'm hoping we're more like Deere (that will be the only time I will ever say I want to be like Deere). We've gone almost 3 decades between strikes (contract is every 6 or 7 years). With inflation the way it is, I'm guessing we're looking at a strike this year because they are going to want more than we will offer them.
 
There were open hangars at DEC when I was looking. Just sayin.
 
In another life I worked in offshore oil exploration - all over the world, but typically on the other side of it. So in addition to dealing with 12-hour work shifts there was the problem of crossing many time
zones. The net result was that, by the time you got where you were going your internal clock was chaos, and adjusting to the new situation was a PITA. I tried many things, but eventually settled on the
strategy of forcing the issue through sleep deprivation. By that I mean staying awake until it is time to sleep in the new location. Hard to do - but it works. The only sleep aid I ever used was Melatonin -
which helped somewhat. I have never been one to take naps - and never had much luck trying to sleep in airline seats. One exception was that after Pan Am sold their Pacific routes to United, the flights
went nearly empty for quite awhile (was working in Australia at the time). So you could have a whole row of seats to yourself. I made good use of them.

Another adventure in changing work schedules was when I was in the military, assigned to an Army HQ message center. It operated 24/7, and to ensure that all suffered equally, we worked a rotating schedule.
Eight hours for seven days straight, then exactly 72 hours off - returning on the next shift (days to evenings to graveyard). You never really got used to it - and I do not recall anyone saying that they liked
the arrangement. At least the graveyard shift was only for one week a month, so one could have a reasonably normal existence for 3/4 of the time. Also, fortunately, I was single in those days, so family
issues were not a factor.

Dave
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
Wait, are you saying commuting or just having it down there with me. Now maybe that makes sense. :cool:
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Work 2300-0700
Fly 0700-1500
Sleep 1500-2300

30m round trip if you need/want to run home instead of 2 hours. Gives you something to do during all that down time. When you go home on the weekend you won't feel like you have to choose between flying and family time. 8 hours is plenty of time to do lifeline flights and work on your commercial.

Best part is if you go to the trouble of renting a hangar you can guarantee the strike will be short.

Get a big one so we can put our Navajo/ Aerostar/ seneca/ twin commander in it when you're done.
 
Jim K said:
Work 2300-0700
Fly 0700-1500
Sleep 1500-2300

30m round trip if you need/want to run home instead of 2 hours. Gives you something to do during all that down time. When you go home on the weekend you won't feel like you have to choose between flying and family time. 8 hours is plenty of time to do lifeline flights and work on your commercial.

Best part is if you go to the trouble of renting a hangar you can guarantee the strike will be short.

Get a big one so we can put our Navajo/ Aerostar/ seneca/ twin commander in it when you're done.
Click to expand...

I’d just flip the fly/sleep times, but that could work.
 
NealRomeoGolf said:
While on strike duty, all mileage beyond your regular distance to the office is reimbursable at the going IRS rate. Breakfast and dinner is paid for by the company. I will be eating peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch.
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Lemme know if you need some honey. I've got about 60 gallons from this year's harvest. If you take a 5 gallon bucket, you might not need to sleep IMG_20220802_191306155.jpg
 
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My strategy would be to find a nice warm corner of the factory where nobody goes.
 
Racerx said:
Lemme know if you need some honey. I've got about 60 gallons from this year's harvest. If you take a 5 gallon bucket, you might not need to sleep View attachment 113504
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Oh man. I LOVE honey. So much that I collect (eat) different flavors all the time. I'm currently finishing off an avocado honey. If you need a buyer for some of that, let me know.
 
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