Anyone do a 4 on/4 off shift pattern?

Messages
123
Edit My Images
No
Hi all, bit of a random question. I'm an Engineer currently doing pretty much a bog standard 9-5.

I've been offered the opportunity to go on nights, on a 4 on/4 off rotation with a pretty massive pay rise.

My only concern is i have a young Daughter and the missus, while supportive, does not seem keen, despite the massive benefits once it all evens out.

Anyone here done it? I'm already a bit of a night owl anyway, but just wondered what others experiences were?

Thanks [emoji4]
 
Hi all, bit of a random question. I'm an Engineer currently doing pretty much a bog standard 9-5.

I've been offered the opportunity to go on nights, on a 4 on/4 off rotation with a pretty massive pay rise.

My only concern is i have a young Daughter and the missus, while supportive, does not seem keen, despite the massive benefits once it all evens out.

Anyone here done it? I'm already a bit of a night owl anyway, but just wondered what others experiences were?

Thanks [emoji4]


Not good in the long term, health wise.
My son did it for many years in the heath service, as a charge nurse on coronary care and in A&E.
Ended up recently with a medical retirement, after a heart attack. and mental health problems...
High stress for too long and poor sleep structure... It gets to you.
But for a couple of Years of good pay, it has some advantages.
 
What hours does your wife work?
Do you 'need' the money?
How old is the daughter?

You will NEVER get the time back...

I should expand that at 18 I worked nights for a year (M-F) on a job & finish role - you will miss events..
 
Last edited:
Our Daughter is 2, the extra money would be helpful but is not essential, although we are saving for a house.

Missus is currently a stay at home Mum. It is a relatively relaxed working environment and is not really high stress, plus as a mechanical Engineer trying to study for my Electrical qualifications, my manager thinks it also presents an opportunity to speed that up.

And its only for a year, and i'll retain my payrise when i move back to either a 4 on/4 off day shift or 5 day work week.
 
Our Daughter is 2, the extra money would be helpful but is not essential, although we are saving for a house.

Missus is currently a stay at home Mum. It is a relatively relaxed working environment and is not really high stress, plus as a mechanical Engineer trying to study for my Electrical qualifications, my manager thinks it also presents an opportunity to speed that up.

And its only for a year, and i'll retain my payrise when i move back to either a 4 on/4 off day shift or 5 day work week.

For a year, go for it.
 
I did 4 on 4 off for 18 years, it was good apart from you are spend around 50% of the time working art of a weekend. If your missus works Mon - Fri it can be a ball-ache. You don't mention if it is days only or days and nights? I assume 12 hour shifts?
 
I did 4 on 4 off for 18 years, it was good apart from you are spend around 50% of the time working art of a weekend. If your missus works Mon - Fri it can be a ball-ache. You don't mention if it is days only or days and nights? I assume 12 hour shifts?
Its only nights, no days at all, on a 12 hour shift, Daughter has only just turned 2 and the missus isn't looking to go back to work until September 2020.
 
Its only nights, no days at all, on a 12 hour shift, Daughter has only just turned 2 and the missus isn't looking to go back to work until September 2020.
Hmmm, I wouldn't fancy that myself, but iff it is only for a year then maybe it's worth it. Hopefully you'll ba able to manage to sleep in the day with a 2 year old in the house!
 
swap you mine this is a what I'm on this week/next
Sun 8-2 Mon 7=1 Tue Rest Wed Rest Thurs 12-9 Fri 7-6 Sat 8-8 Sun 7- 6
Mon Rest Tue 7-9 Wed 7-6 Thurs 8-1 Fri 7-8
every 20 weeks I do a set of nights 8.30- 7.30 for a week start Tue night - to the following Tue morning
if you never work nights before it takes a while to get use to them
 
Dont do it. It will mess with your body clock snd could take years to get back to normal. I used to work days and nights alternate weeks for 15 years, I packed it in 19 years ago for days regular and my sleep patterns took about 10 years to get back to normal.
 
It's a tough one as a lifetime IT contractor I have often been offered contracts with very poor hours but at serious pay hikes. I once worked a contract at £48/hour for 2x 12 hour weekend shifts every two weeks on top of my usual contract rate so over £1100 for a weekend siting in an office for a weekend bored off my lungs.

but all that extra cash in the pension, I did that contact 10 years ago for 1.5 years.
I have just finishished a contract in Scotland that lasted two years working on a site that you wont ever find on google maps but the payoff was huge.
you need to weigh up the pros and the cons, my pros are I will retire to my house in crete hopefully by age 53

you need to decide what you want
 
For a year its a no-brainer - especially if it lines up other options for you.
 
I lived with someone that went from daytime hours to this shift pattern in the end it Lead to us breaking up . Not enough time together and on her first day of off each time she was just a bad tempered cow .which in reality meant we only had 2 days of normality a week .not something* I would advise unless you have a extra strong marriage
 
I've been on 2 days 2 nights 4 off over 25 yrs. Not bad if we don't have to do extra shifts to cover sickness, training etc
I'm not really a light sleeper, if I have to do 4 nights my wife ain't a happy bunny as she feels it restricts what she can do in the house.
Also says i turn even grumpier than usual...
As noted in a post above you can write off a lot of weekend socialising and time with the little one.
Can be a bonus getting days off in the week though, less busy for visiting places, hobbies etc.
Just the pesky pensioners to get in the way, LOL.
 
Last edited:
I did 6 months of a rotating 3 shift pattern about 45 years ago. It suited some people just fine but I absolutely hated it. Unfortunately you won't know if it suits you until you've tried it.
 
I did 6 months of a rotating 3 shift pattern about 45 years ago. It suited some people just fine but I absolutely hated it. Unfortunately you won't know if it suits you until you've tried it.
This^
I’ve had a couple of spells working nights and hated it, my best mate for years did 4on 4off and it never bothered him.

I used to live in a mining community and the shifts suited some fine, others hated it.
 
The main thing is to be happy in what you do, the money is secondary. I know money is important but my experience is that it isn't everything.

I did 4 on 4 off for about 5 years (days and nights) 12 hour shifts, my first job after leaving school and it was one fo the best jobs I've ever had, I had only one other job that I enjoyed more and a few that I really didn't like. The worst part for me was the day before going back to start a 4 day rota, particularly the day shift for some reason (I'm not a morning person at all), but once I was there, I was fine and the last few hours of your last shift, looking forward to 4 days off was great. The shift pattern didn't bother me at all and I actually prefered the night shift as it was a more relaxed atmosphere. More importantly than anything though was the fact that I enjoyed my job which made me happy in all aspects of life, this to me is the main thing.

Money is nice but as I got older, I realised there was more to life.

It's horses for courses I think, I was far happier doing 4 on, 4 off than I was on a Monday to Friday pattern, both have their advantages and disadvantages, at that time of my life, it suited me fine, particularly nightshift.
 
I did a month about days and nights for a year or so after my apprenticeship, which then changed to a fortnight about shift pattern. The first night was always the worst but staying up as late as possible and sleeping in the morning before the 1st night helped. If you didn't get it right you would find yourself walking around like a zombie, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. You can find yourself eating anything, usually crap food, just to stay awake. This can cause ulcers as well as increased blood pressure and related illnesses. Then there is trying to drive home in the morning. I know someone who wrote their car off as they fell asleep at the wheel and hit the central reservation barrier.
After almost 30yrs of just working early and late shift, 7yrs ago I had to work earlies lates and nights. The early and late shifts were pretty much the same hours I had been working before and no problem, but I just couldn't get on with the night shift week. After the night shift I would get home around 7, see my sons off to college and school and be in bed by 8:00am. The problem was that I would be awake again by 10:30 am. If I got up I would feel crap by 5:30pm and even worse by 9:30pm when I would need to leave for work, if I tried to go back to sleep at 10:30am, I would drift in and out of sleep, never actually falling asleep properly and still feel crap when eventually getting up and again when getting ready for work. Plus which I had to miss the gym for a week when on nights as it messed up my eating routine. Thankfully the 3 shift only lasted for 6 months before I returned to my regular early and late shift pattern.

If you can keep your eating and sleeping pattern during the 4 days off similar to the 4 work nights, you shouldn't see or feel too much of a problem with it.
 
In general terms, organic life hasn't evolved to do this. Circadian rhythms linked to a fixed 24-hour day/night cycle go down to the cellular level, and resist sudden changes. It's similar to flying to New Zealand for four days, dealing with the jet lag, then flying home and dealing with it again, continuously. I've read that it takes 1 day/hour of difference for your body to fully adjust, so you're never going to completely adapt. Night shift (and to a greater degree rotating shift) workers have been found to have increased risks of things like diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, obesity, depression, psychosis, and a whole host of other ailments. The longer they do it, the greater the risk.
Socially, if you're going to try to go back to normal on your days off, the first one will be really rough. Also, good luck keeping a two year old quiet all day to let Daddy sleep on work days. I've worked with a guy who did permanent nights, and he had a young family. I'd generally pass him as he arrived; he'd be bleary-eyed, yawning, and carrying an energy drink 6-pack (the 500ml cans). He often had to do (or help with) family and general life stuff during "normal" working hours, so he'd end up with pretty much no sleep for like 36 hours. There are folks out there who seem to be able to do it long term with no obvious negative effects, but it's been contended they're the statistical outliers (like the folks who smoked 60 a day for 50 years, with minimal health issues).

If you do decide to try it, make sure you have a get-out clause in case you find it's too hard on your health or family life.
 
would echo one thing I had the advantage of is a quiet house to come back to in the AM.
pretty much the wife heading out as I headed in so I got really good sleeps.

with a two year old kicking off in the house, potential nightmare.
 
The advice was very much appreciated. In the end i decided that it was not a good idea. Money cannot buy your time back, and i know for a fact that I'd be the kind of sap to get in and then run around after my 2yr old, possibly grabbing a couple of hours here and there, and making my already temperamental mood even more fragile.

Not worth it IMO, but none the less, thanks to everyone who replied [emoji4]
 
I did 12 hr nights 4 on 4 off in my young free and single days and it was brilliant did so many City breaks in the 4 off.

At 47 with a family, no chance would I do it unless the only option.. I sometimes have a moan now and I work 7am - 3pm(2:30 on Fridays).
 
yep, worked over 20 years various shifts 4 on 8 off.... 4 on 6 off.... 4/4... 5/3... days/nights mostly, ive worked with people who really needed their sleep and slept most of the time off they had, i make do with about 4-5 hours sleep, but everyone is different, it never gave me any health probs at all, my family are very supportive and its great with the kids coz you get them all day to yourself so the bonding is ace!
hope that helps
 
Things to consider

On the day before your first night shift you need to get enought sleep to do the 12 hour shift so that day you cant plan anything , then the day after your forth shift is lost as you will need sleep after doing the 12 hour shift

I have worked nights for 25 plus years now
 
Been working 4 on 4 off for 20 years alterneting between days and nights wouldn't recomend it to any one but the first few years wre ok so if your youngish and its only for a year then go for it. On the pay front are you getting a premium for working shifts and if so will you loose it at the end of the year ....Good luck .
 
Back
Top