my first NIGHT SHIFT🌙 as a new grad labor postpartum nurse🤰🏻🍼💞

Añadido: 2026-05-17

[00:01:07]Good evening. It is about 5:00 p.m.

[00:01:10]right now, which is crazy. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that I am starting my day in the evening. It feels wrong. I woke up at 400 p.m. You know, you go your entire life going to bed when it's dark outside, trying to get to bed at a good hour, waking up when the sun rises, and now here I am doing a complete 180 and starting night shift. So, for those of you who don't know, I am a newrad nurse.

[00:01:34]I work as a labor delivery, recovery, postpartum nurse. Currently, I'm doing my postpartum training and then labor training will come after that, but I am working night shift. While I'm training, I am rotating between nights and days, but eventually I will be on full-time nights. Also, the night shift is 7:00 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. For the past couple days, I've been trying to switch my sleep schedule a little bit so that I could gradually ease into it. So, last night was the first night that I pulled a full all nighter. And I went to bed around 700 a.m. and then I was able to sleep until about 4:00. I woke up like in the middle of the day, and it was kind of tricky to get back to sleep, but I ended up thankfully falling asleep. I actually woke up like closer to 3:00 and just kind of like laid in bed until about 4:00. Overall, I got a decent amount of sleep and I'm very grateful that I was able to sleep during the day.

[00:02:19]I had been like Pavloves dogging myself is what I've been saying because I've been sleeping with the noise machine at night when I was working in the days so that I could like trick my brain into hearing that sound and knowing, okay, it's time for bed so that when I started using it during the daytime trying to sleep, it would hopefully help me sleep better. And it worked. So, hopefully it stays that way. I'm drinking my nice 5:00 p.m. cup of coffee right now. So, so strange. Last night, I drank a cup of coffee at 9:00 p.m. And it just felt so wrong. I was meal prepping last night because I was like, "What do I even do?

[00:02:49]I should treat the night as if it's day and just like get stuff done like I normally would." But it just felt so wrong to be doing stuff in the middle of the night. But I did get a good amount of meal prep done, which is good because now I have lunches and everything for my shift, if you even want to call it lunch. I don't even know what to call my meals. Like, I'm about to have breakfast even though it's dinner time. And I woke up so hungry because I'm used to having eaten like breakfast and lunch by this hour and it's like dinner time. But I ate a meal at like 4 in the morning before I went to bed because I was hungry. So, I don't know. I'm just going to be eating when I'm hungry. I'm going to pack a lunch for my shift and like lots of snacks. I don't really know. But speaking of which, I need to pack my lunch/midnight snack, whatever you want to call it. If you couldn't tell, we survive off of meal prep in this household. And that is what I spent my entire night doing last night. We got salmon salad. We got taco bowls. We got lots of fruits and veggies. This is some extra pasta. A couple more taco bowls. I already preset out the strawberries and carrots that I want to take in my lunch, too, so that I have like my main meal and the sides ready to go because I have a feeling that as I continue working night shift, I'm not going to want to make anything when I'm home and I'm going to be really tired. So, I made it easier for myself and just had everything ready to go.

[00:04:05]All right, I'm going to take a taco bowl and then some carrots and strawberries and some extra little snacks cuz I don't really know what I'm going to be hungry for. These are like these green pea chips, some applesauce. Ooh, you know what I want to bring? This is a caffeinated protein drink. So, if I need a little pickme up of more caffeine, I'll have this. I'm definitely not going to eat all this, but I just want to have options because I don't know what I'm going to be in the mood for in the middle of the night cuz I'm not used to eating in the middle of the night. But also, while I'm working, I'm probably going to get hungry.

[00:04:38]I'm using my husband's fancy mug, by the way, that keeps your coffee hot cuz I knew I would be like sipping it before work. So, keeping it nice and toasty. I need to get a lunch box that actually fits in my bag. This is the bag that I have, and it just is like kind of skinny. It's very wide, but skinny. And this just doesn't fit in there. I definitely don't need this big of a lunch box. Also, I have my journal right here as a reminder to journal cuz I didn't want to forget. It's so weird because I'm used to journaling before I go to bed, but it's like midnight is going to pass while I'm working. So, I need to make sure that I journal before my shift. And I'm not really sure if I'm going to get in the routine of maybe journaling when I get home from work, which will be in the mornings, but that's before I go to bed. I don't know.

[00:05:19]But, I haven't journaled yet for the day. And I'm going to stick to like the calendar days for journaling every day and not like the wake periods of when I'm awake my days or nights. So, I need a journal and I'll probably do that now before I leave. Maybe I'll just also get in the habit of keeping my journal in my work bag just in case like I forget or something, especially as my schedule is transitioning for the first time. So, it just would be a safer thing to keep it in my work bag. So, like if I do find myself at work and realize I forgot to journal, then I'll have it on me and can just take like 2 minutes to scribble an entry whenever I get a sec. Also, if you noticed, I have all my little like pens and highlighters right here. I have pink and blue and purple to be on theme for the specialty. The bag also came with this little purse. So, I wanted to like have a little to-go bag in here. Some extra concealer because I have a feeling I'm going to look really tired and might want to reapply it so I look a little bit more alive. A little extra hair tie.

[00:06:14]a little baby hand sanitizer, extra lip gloss, and then some deodorant. Maybe I'll add something else in here at some point, but I think that's good for now.

[00:06:22]I'm also keeping this energy drink handy in my work bag. This was actually part of the welcome to the unit gift that I got. I'm not an energy drink person.

[00:06:29]I've never actually even tried Alani's.

[00:06:31]And I'm kind of nervous to open that door because I don't want to get myself addicted. But it does look really yummy.

[00:06:36]So, I'm just keeping it in my bag as like a just in case. So, if I really need some extra caffeine at some point, then I have it on hand. I still need to put my scrub top on. This is not what I wear to work, by the way. And then I also have a jacket that I want to bring cuz what if I get cold in the middle of the night? And then lastly, look at this. I got some compression socks. It just helps with like the blood flow and circulation in your legs, especially with standing for long periods of time.

[00:07:00]So, I got these off of Amazon. And look, they're so cute. They're like a baby pink color, just like it says in the name. They are compression socks, so they are a little hard to get on. Would you look at that? Nice pink compression socks. Feels weird. Like I feel like my legs are just being squeezed. I guess that's the whole point. I'm just not used to that. I'm kind of It's like bunching up right around my knees. I can tell my body is just feeling off. I'm hungry because I haven't eaten, but also my body is like starting to wind down for bed, but also I'm rested cuz I slept. I'm like, "What?" And then mentally I'm not used to starting my day at this hour. So, I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I need to like journal and get ready for work." I have a whole 12 and a half hour shift ahead of me. What the heck is that about? I think I'm still in denial, and I'm just trying to tell myself that it's like 5 6:00 a.m. right now. Normally, it's not light outside at that time, but that at least like getting the sunshine in my eyes will help wake me up and get me ready and thinking like it's not about to be night time. Okay, you know, I should probably eat and journal. I also haven't gotten in the word. Uh, I haven't been using my time super wisely this evening/m morning. I'm definitely going to have to find a routine. Same with working out. I don't know if I would rather work out before my shift in the afternoons or after my shifts in the mornings before I go to bed. Probably before my shift. I don't know. I'm going to figure it out. I'm just giving myself lots of grace for now because everything's changing. Everything is a little different. This is my breakfast.

[00:08:34]I know. I literally just meal prepped last night, but I want to eat this before it goes bad. It's a sandwich from Costco. I'm like, what do you even eat at this time? Do you eat breakfast foods? Do you eat dinner foods? I don't know. I have done night shift before, but it was years ago and temporarily while I was training to be an EMT. So, it was like the beginning of nursing school, maybe before then. I can't even remember. But it was only temporarily.

[00:08:55]So, I never really got into like a full night shift routine and figured out like what really worked. And honestly, it was so long ago that I can't even remember what I did. I do remember though working nights as an EMT was nice because the roads were always so clear. Whereas during the daytime there's a lot more cars on the road and sometimes it's hard to get somewhere when there's a bunch of cars in your way and there's like traffic and you have to split the Red Sea with your lights and siren. Oh my gosh. Wow. I'm so hungry right now.

[00:09:20]Right now I feel kind of good because I think I'm just excited to go to work. I really really love my job. However, I also anticipate a middle of the night crash where I'm going to be really feeling sleepy. Especially because if I was working a day shift, I'd normally wake up around 5:00 a.m., maybe 5:30, which is like right now in night shift world, cuz it's like 5:30 p.m. now. You basically just flip everything 12 hours.

[00:09:42]So, if normally I'd wake up at 5:00 a.m., I'd be waking up at 5:00 p.m. But I've already been awake for a good couple hours, which is kind of equivalent to waking up at like 3 or 4:00 a.m. before a 12-hour shift. I don't know. I'll keep you guys posted on how it goes. And the thing is too is because I'm still training like I'm orienting to the unit right now. I'm going to be learning a lot of stuff and I really just hope I'm awake enough to actually comprehend it and pay attention. Especially with charting, I'm not really worried about the actual care. I feel like that will be the easy part of the job. Charting though, there's just so much to remember and so much you need to chart and it's just a lot when you haven't done it before. If you know, you know. Charting is just it can be rough and I just feel like it might be tricky to really remember it all if I'm feeling really sleepy. It is officially time to journal. I have to leave kind of soon, but I want to knock out my journaling before I go because I don't want to journal on the job. This is so weird. It's sort of like I'm journaling in the morning time, but it's the evening and I'm about to leave and go to work. I just can't get over it. I know people have worked night shift forever, but now that I'm actually like stepping into it, I'm just like, what the heck? This is crazy.

[00:11:40]I am done with my night shift. I can't believe that I just worked 12 and 1/2 hours. That is kind of crazy to me. And I can't believe that it's like 8:00 in the morning and that I'm going to go like eat dinner and go to bed or breakfast or whatever you want to call it. But overall, it was a really good night. My preceptor was really nice. I felt really comfortable on the floor and we had two couplets, so two moms and babies. Normally, you can have like three couplets, but we stayed pretty darn busy the whole night. And I definitely think that helped to make the time go by fast. And then also one of the patients asked me if I had kids and I was like, "Oh, no, not yet." And she was like, "Oh, you just seem so comfortable with babies." And I was like, "That is such a nice compliment."

[00:12:18]But yeah, overall it was really good. I felt like I was cruising like the whole night up until about 5:00 a.m. And then I was definitely getting pretty tired.

[00:12:24]And right now I am I'm really looking forward to going to bed. This is when meal prep comes so in handy because I do not even want to begin to think about cooking right now. I just took the best shower of my life and the sleepiness is really hitting me now. But I'm also starving, so I'm going to eat and then just go crash. And I don't need to journal yet because it's the morning time, so I can journal later when I wake up. I don't work tonight, but I work the night after that. So the equivalent would be like having one day in between your shift. So like theoretically, I could sleep the rest of today, stay up all night, sleep through the following day, and then wake up and go to work. I think I've shown this jar to you guys in my other video when I had my first day, my shadow day that I did. These are for all of the babies that I've helped deliver already, like before I started working here. So, during nursing school, during my job as a tech, but that was from a labor and delivery unit. Whereas now, I'm on a labor and delivery unit and postpartum unit all in one. And I'm not going to be doing my labor training until the fall. So, I'm like, do I make a separate postpartum jar cuz I'm not going to be delivering babies anytime soon. But like I just took care of two baby girls today and I wouldn't want to have it all in the same jar because I like keeping the deliveries separate.

[00:13:38]But should I keep track of the other babies that I've helped care for? The only thing though is like if you care for the same baby in backtoback shifts, you probably wouldn't count them twice and that can maybe get a little tricky to keep track of. Also, you would definitely use up beads a lot quicker with postpartum beads because if you have three babies a shift, that's like up to nine beads a week. Whereas with labor, you're not about to have like that many babies on every single shift for the whole week or at all. I don't know. I just can't get over how strange it feels right now because it's like my body knows it's daytime and that it's time to get up for the day. But I'm also so tired because I just stayed up all night working and it's not like I have anything to do today because this is my sleeping time. But in my mind, it's like it's daytime. It's time to do stuff.

[00:14:23]It's definitely going to take a minute to flip that. But anyway, I am going to finish eating and just go right to sleep. I am so tired. But thank you so much for watching. I hope you guys are having a lovely day or night wherever you are. And I'll see you guys in my next