For all of us who stay with our boyfriend/girlfriends or live with them, we always have to adjust schedules in order to get that QT (quality time). Something that can make this difficult is if your schedules are very different, particularly if you work a "regular" shift and they work 3rd shift.

My boyfriend has been on third shift a few times and is currently on third shift again and has been for about 2 and a half months. We have had to make a lot of changes and tweaks to our QT. There are some things that I have learned from our journey that I wanted to share with my fellow ladies/men who are sleeping in that bed alone at night!

1. Be super quiet in the morning!

Think about when you get into bed after a super long day and you're so ready to catch some Z's. How do you feel when someone wakes you up in the middle of your peaceful sleep?

2. The sleep schedule is the same on their days off

Even when they aren't working, they are still going to stay up all night. It is good to communicate how that is going to work and what time you go to bed. I think that is one of the things that I really had to wrap my head around was that their sleep schedule doesn't just change because they aren't working that day. I used to get mad when my boyfriend would stay up all night when he wasn't working so this was probably the biggest change I had to make and adjust to.

3. Encourage them to get sleep

Sometimes I have noticed that my boyfriend will try and stay up in the morning for a while, especially on my days off, and push himself to stay awake. He has stated multiple times that he just wants to spend time with me. But I try and encourage him to get as much sleep as he can because he has to go to work and do it all over again. Even though there is nothing I want more than to spend some QT with my man, I know nothing is easy without sleep. Sometimes you have to get forceful, but that's ok, they know it's out of love!

4. You enjoy the alone time (both of you!)

The schedules start to fall in and things start getting a bit easier. You find new things to do and you even begin to appreciate the alone time. Not that it was something that you didn't have before, but it is different.

The one thing that I cannot adjust to is sleeping alone. I will admit, I am still afraid of the dark. So it was always nice having my boyfriend there. But with him working third shift, I had to learn how to sleep alone again, which is difficult when you're scared of the dark.

5. You really enjoy the time you spend together

Not that you don't enjoy the time before they started working third shift, but you begin to cherish the time now that it is a bit smaller of a window. There seems to always be about a three hour window where we are both not working and awake. We eat dinners together, grocery shop, and maybe watch the occasional TV show. But when we spend time, it is so much more focused on just spending time. You really start to cherish it and it feels a bit different (in a good way).

I cannot imagine what it would be like to work third shift because your girl really enjoys her sleep on a regular basis. I truly appreciate all the work that my boyfriend does. He truly is amazing (and I know you all think the same about yours!). So for all of you third shift boyfriend/girlfriends, know that we appreciate you SO much and that you're doing a great job!