{"id":1744,"date":"2025-10-30T04:15:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hippiemommy.com\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2025-10-30T04:30:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T04:30:01","slug":"night-shift-essentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hippiemommy.com\/?p=1744","title":{"rendered":"Night shift essentials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I transitioned to working graveyard shift a few months ago. I had previously done overnight shift work as a doula, but that didn&#8217;t require me to flip my sleep cycle entirely. Here are a few of the night shift essentials that I&#8217;ve learned along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Blackout shades that attach to your windows<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I already owned blackout curtains, but <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3JB5hxO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow\">these ones<\/a> that attach with Velcro to my windows changed my life. They make it PITCH BLACK in my room, which is really important when you&#8217;re trying to sleep. On my off days, they&#8217;re easy to remove, so I don&#8217;t feel like a vampire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Stay up until at least midnight on your weekend<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My goal on all of my weekend days has been to stay up until at least midnight. If possible, I try to make it until 2am and sleep until 10am. I find that an afternoon nap on my first day back to work helps me to make it through the whole shift without getting too sleepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Meal prep<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"836\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=836%2C1024&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1752\" style=\"width:283px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=836%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 836w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=245%2C300&amp;ssl=1 245w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=768%2C941&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=1253%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1253w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?resize=10%2C12&amp;ssl=1 10w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hippiemommy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/img_7247.jpg?w=1632&amp;ssl=1 1632w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 836px) 100vw, 836px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>One big downside to working overnight is that there&#8217;s almost nothing open in my town. Without prepped meals, I would&#8217;ve been starving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I almost always bring some kind of yogurt parfait\/overnight oats\/chia pudding. I don&#8217;t really follow a recipe and I just use the ingredients that I have on hand. I typically dump in about a half cup of oats, enough Greek yogurt or milk to cover by about an inch, and then stir in some chia seeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After that, I top it with whatever fruit (fresh or frozen) that I have in abundance and maybe add some nut butter or coconut. If the fruit that I have is crunchy (like an apple), then I&#8217;ll cook it down to make it soft before I add it to my jar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My second meal at work is usually some kind of more &#8220;dinner&#8221;-y food. Last week I made a big batch of butternut squash soup and sourdough bread. The week before, I made black bean enchiladas. If I don&#8217;t feel like cooking, I&#8217;ll get the ingredients for a fruit\/cheese plate, and just make that up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A heated blanket<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This will depend a lot on your work environment, but I find that I get quite chilly around 2am. I&#8217;m sitting at my job, so it is nice to have a heated blanket. I went for <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4hv1hve\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow\">this one<\/a>, but I&#8217;ve found great ones at Costco before too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Vitamin D supplements<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A coworker recommended this, and I feel like it made a HUGE difference. I won&#8217;t lie. I went for the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/4hxF1Bb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow\">gummies<\/a>, and that has made it way easier to make sure that I take them every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">White noise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My house is loud, so having white noise was very important. If my teens suddenly break into song, I need to be able to turn up white noise and not hear them. Any <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/436NchP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow\">white noise machine<\/a> will do. If you have Spotify premium and a phone with a good battery life, you can even use one of their white noise playlists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re on night shift, I&#8217;d love to hear what has worked for you! The transition was much easier than I expected, but I feel like these items all made a huge difference. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I transitioned to working graveyard shift a few months ago. I had previously done overnight shift work as a doula, but that didn&#8217;t require me to flip my sleep cycle entirely. Here are a few of the night shift essentials that I&#8217;ve learned along the way. Blackout shades that attach to your windows I already [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Night shift essentials - Hippiemommy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Night shift essentials, tips, tricks and hacks\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hippiemommy.com\/?p=1744\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Night shift essentials - 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