Any helpful tips on transferring to doing nights instead of days. Will be 1900 to 0500 days a week.
Depends on your natural body clock, but for me that would be bliss.
Bed as soon as possible after getting home.
Only a bowl of cereal to eat if anything before bed (great to send you to sleep - not so good to start the day on).
Ear plugs in to dull any noises.
Complete darkness in room so good blackout curtains required.
Wake naturally & have the luxury of never getting up to an alarm. A lie-in is available every day if wanted but on those hours unlikely to be needed.
Don’t eat a big meal before going to work - it could easily make you to sleepy within the first hour if you go too large.
Coffee is for borrowing energy so don’t overdo it early on. Keep it until needed during the early AM hours. If you start too early payback may come just at the worst time.
Don’t eat too much when driving & certainly not too much sugar - the low after the spike could catch you out (especially around 2-5 AM).
Last shift have about 4 hours sleep & you will still be able to sleep at night after retiring about 1AM - easy to get up early for day off.
On the night at home before 1st shift stay up late & get up late but don’t sweat over trying to sleep just before work as it will mess your sleep rhythm up more.
That would be my procedure but modify it to your own sleep rhythm.
If tired stop. Nobody has the legal authority to make you drive when tired. Lose the job before someones life.
Powerful torch required & cheap these days with 18650 batteries to power them.
I’ll never go back to doing them, the toll on the body & mind is very high…Doesn’t matter how much sleep you get its not the same quality…
Take lots of coffee with you, try to get a power nap in if you can. after a while you will work out what suits you best, some people finish a shift get home & straight to bed, others stay up and go to bed 6-8hrs before they have to leave again. If you really finish at 5am thats not to bad if you can get home and in bed by 0600 up again by 1400.
Its when you start finishing at 12-13pm that its a killer well for me personally…
Get good curtains & ear plugs!
Personally i always stayed in nightshift mode even on nights off, some guys don’t sleep at all after their last shift & only go to bed again in the evening but I found that completely crazy…
Good luck
nights is the best shift you get to skip all the rush hours queues as the worst is going in the opersite direction. the only draw back is if the company pays night rate to a certain time then getting held up on your shift is a real bind as suddenly your working for less money.
I swapped the opposite 3 month ago,thought it would do me good as I couldn’t get out of night mode on a weekend,done nights for years but could never sleep on a weekend,was alright on a night out on a weekend though as I didn’t come alive until 9 o’clock 
Struggle with alarm on days especially when it goes off at around 2am but my diets a lot better and my body clock seems to have sorted itself out a bit,but don’t seem to have much time to myself like I did on nights,starting to think I’d be better back on nights or tramping on days sometimes(start times were better on nights).
Don’t miss the road closures on nights though or trying to get in somewhere to get a break in as everywhere chocker on a night,always take a flask with you as chances of getting a brew anywhere are poor.
It’s all about the body clock being able to adapt perfectly to the point where night time just becomes your day time.Don’t try to switch it back to days over weekends.Even holidays can be difficult.
I certainly preferred the get home from work and go to bed and get up late in the day sleep pattern, than getting up early morning and going to work on days.
I did midnight /1 am starts which was classed as days ( not sure how they worked that one out ) , I packed it in when I woke up heading for a field on the way to Filey , always had a really bad hour where really struggled
As I say they classed that as days , nights for me
Nights is OK your sleep time is not the same,8 hours for me at night was more than enough BUT sleep in the day 8 was not enough,went to bed tired got up tired. Half way through my shift I was glad of a nap. Other problem was at w/ends being in bed on a Saturday and starting back on Monday night played havoc on your body clock by Tuesday it caught up with me.
I like a bottle of wine at the weekend.But alcohol makes you sleepy but then makes you wake up earlier,so if I drink on a Sunday night,go to be at 11pm then wake up 530am ,go about my business till 1pm,sleep 130pm till 5,nice and fresh for night shift.
dozy:
I did midnight /1 am starts which was classed as days ( not sure how they worked that one out )
Because…
You sucked up to them and just went in. 5 past midnight start times are the oldest trick in the book to get nights paid as days. It’s no wonder you fell for it. 
Tell 'em it’s 23.30 the latest you’ll start.
yourhavingalarf:
dozy:
I did midnight /1 am starts which was classed as days ( not sure how they worked that one out )Because…
You sucked up to them and just went in. 5 past midnight start times are the oldest trick in the book to get nights paid as days. It’s no wonder you fell for it.
Tell 'em it’s 23.30 the latest you’ll start.
That’s what Staffline does to get people to work Mondays when they said they wanted a Sunday
…If you get a right-through rate, it ain’t so bad - but you’ll still be driving tired in the morning rush hour!