What Can You Do About Urinary Incontinence at Night?
Luckily, depending on the severity of symptoms, you can take steps to decrease urine leakage at night, or limit the amount of cleanup necessary. Here are three do-it-yourself steps you might want to try.
1. Bladder Retraining
Bladder retraining involves urinating at regular intervals during the day, whether you feel like you need to go or not. The goal is the increase the interval of time so that you urinate less and less frequently during the day. This will often relieve symptoms of nighttime urine leakage.
To assist you with bladder retraining, you may need to program your cell phone or a small timer to “beep” at certain intervals, reminding you to go to the bathroom. For instance, during the first week you may want to set the timer for an hour or 90 minutes. If you feel the urge to urinate before your timer has beeped, breathe deeply and relax. Do a Kegel or pelvic floor contraction or two or suppress the urge. Then urinate at the appointed time.
Each week gradually increase the interval between bathroom visits until you have reached a 3 hour interval. At this point you should definitely see improvement in your nighttime urine leakage symptoms.
2. Strengthen Your Pelvic Floor Muscles
When you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles with Kegels, they will help hold everything in place “down there” both during the day and at night. The key is to do “correct” Kegels. Many women think they are tightening the correct pelvic floor muscles during a Kegel, but in fact are squeezing their thighs or buttocks instead.
To learn how to do a correct Kegel, download our ebook, which has step-by-step instructions on how to perform a correct Kegel. The ebook also gives offers two great tests to help you measure the strength of your pelvic floor muscles.
3. Stop Fluid Intake before Bed
While you definitely need to stay hydrated during the day, since not drinking enough water can worsen symptoms of urinary incontinence, you can decrease night time leakage by stopping your fluid intake 3 hours before bed. Most women report that this 3-hour interval works well to decrease urine leakage at night.
Finally, to prevent messy cleanups or having the change your linens, consider sleeping on a waterproof pad or wearing an adult brief to bed. It can save a lot of hassle during the night so you can rest easy and have sweet dreams!
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