Hiya I'm a newbie to nails so looking for any advice.

I'm practising my manicures at the moment. But I find when I do the polish within a day or two it's shrunk and the tips if the nails are showing slightly. Any advice how to stop this or is this normal? Should I be going right over the edge of the tip?

I currently use orly nail polish. I use the orly primetime then the orly bonder then put on my colour followed by topcoat.

It is not shrinking, it is wearing out. How quickly it depends on quality of polish and top coat, and how client uses her hands.
I do not know what kind of top coat you use, I liked Orly In a snap, dried quickly and kept color from wearing for a few days.

The top cost is orly top to bottom and I've also tried orly polishield.

So it's maybe more to do with the polish than the way I'm applying it?

Ordinary nail polish on natural finger nails will only ever last days. It lasts ages if applied properly on toes. It is not shrinkage as Kasik says, it is wear.

If you want something longer lasting on fingers you will have to look at a gel polish.

Wear and tear , but to help with the longevity be sure to go over the nail with a dehydrator first to remove any oils , I use scrubfresh for this .

Thanks for that. I was worried I was making mistakes.

Have started looking into gel and been practising with orly gel. Fantastic so far. X

Well, to be honest day or two for wear to show up is a bit quick, maybe you shoul try another top coat, and pay attention to painting technique. I work mostly wit OPI polishes, but I have a few from Orly and I did not noticed huge difference - they last the same. And I usually see some wear in polish after 5-7 days, they last really well (and I am talking about wear, not chipping, that is quite a different strory).
When you paint, your brush at the free edge should slide down, do not pick it up - that way you will cap a free edge as well. The same with top coat. HTH!