Sleeping With A Stoma: My 4 Top Tips For A Peaceful Night’s Sleep

The thought of managing my stoma through the night made me anxious

Before I had my stoma formed, I was a little anxious as to how I was going to manage it through the night. Would I have to set an alarm for 2am so I could get up and empty my pouch? Would I have to lie super still so I didn’t knock my stoma? What if I got a leak whilst I was sleeping? Ok, so maybe I was more than a little anxious.

Luckily for me, the first few nights after my operation, when the nurse woke me up to give me my drugs, I was too off my face on painkillers to know what my own name was, let alone worry about my stoma. I honestly can’t remember how I managed any stoma care at all during that time. So how do I accommodate my stoma in the night?

1. I always empty my pouch right before I get into bed. After that, I don’t need to empty it a lot really. Yes, most nights I do have to get up and drain my pouch in the early hours of the morning but I don’t set an alarm for this. In the same way you automatically wake up at 6am on the weekends even though you don’t need to get up for work, I automatically wake up to tend to my pouch in the middle of the night because this is what my system is used to.
2. By planning my meals so that I eat dinner early evening rather than late evening, I can help to avoid the aforementioned task of early morning bag-emptying. Eating earlier means that my stoma is less active (and therefore produces less output) through the night. I have tried this and it definitely works, but muggins here is of course too lazy and disorganised to do this regularly! Another thing that similarly helps is to eat a light evening meal rather than a big, heavy one but, again, I haven’t quite reached this level of discipline.
3. I have learned to reach a compromise on sleeping positions. When I first gained my stoma, I started off sleeping either on my sides or my back but I soon began to miss my favourite night time position – lying on my stomach. Lying face down could potentially prove difficult for ostomates because, depending on the distribution of body weight, it can put pressure on the stoma and pouch. My compromise is: I enjoy the luxury of lying on my stomach for the first ten minutes or so after getting into bed, then I switch.
4. I take extra care to fit my pouch properly before bed. In the entire two and a half years of having a stoma, I have only ever had one night time leak and it wasn’t because of the position I was lying in or because my pouch was overfilled. It was because I hadn’t stuck the thing on properly!