The goal of bladder training is to better control the urge to urinate, reduce the number of bathroom visits and prevent urgency-related urine leakage.
Step 1: Awareness
Do you need to train your bladder?
Fill out this daily bladder diary to help increase awareness and track your symptoms.
If you experience the following in your daily life, this means that you may have a problem and should train your bladder:
You have to get up more than twice during the night to urinate and this affects your sleep.
You need to urinate more than every 2.5 hours during the day.
You always look for a bathroom whenever you go someplace new.
You have significant urine loss that forces you to change your underwear.
You hesitate leaving the house or planning activities that last than 2 hours if you don't know if you will have access to a bathroom.
The goal of bladder training is to gradually stretch your bladder to:
Increase its capacity to store urine and increase the time between bathroom visits.
Reduce how often you go to the bathroom at night.
Better control the urgent need to urinate.
Some food and beverages can affect number of times you urinate per day as well urinary incontinence. Here is a list to the most common bladder irritants.
Step 2: Bladder training
How do you control the urge to urinate?
When you feel a strong urge to urinate, take the steps above (1 to 6) to control the urge or make it go away.
Do NOT get into the position shown in the figure below (i.e., leaning forwards), as this puts pressure on your bladder, which only increases the urge.
Don’t get discouraged if you find it difficult to control the urge to urinate. Stay positive and continue to practice.
Use these techniques every time you have an urgent need to urinate. It will get easier over time, especially once you have succeeded a few times and feel more confident. With practice and strong and toned pelvic floor muscles, you should be able to suppress these urges to urinate.
How to time bathroom trips farther apart
Calculate the time interval between each time you urinate.
If you feel the need to urinate but you went to the bathroom less than 2.5 hours ago, try to hold it in by using the techniques described in the section above: stop, (or sit if possible); relax and do quick, strong and repetitive contractions of your pelvic floor muscles (8 times) or try to hold a strong contraction for 8 to 10 seconds; and think about something else.
If the need to urinate passes, continue what you were doing. If your urge to urinate is less intense and you feel you can wait, put off going to the bathroom for another 5 minutes. If you still feel the urge to urinate urgently, repeat step 2. The goal is to delay urination by 5 minutes.
Do this exercise whenever you feel the urge to urinate during the day and when your last trip to the bathroom was less than 2.5 hours ago.
Each week, increase your time between urinations by an additional 5 minutes.
The goal is to urinate only about every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day.
Takeaways
Try to urinate only when you actually need to. You will gradually learn to differentiate between a false urge (urgency) and a real urge to urinate (a full bladder).
Do not go to the bathroom “just in case,” unless, for example, you are going to run errands for a while or you are going to bed. Doing this over time may reduce your bladder’s capacity.
Take the time to empty your bladder so that it is completely drained. When you are rushed or poorly seated on the toilet, you likely won't be able to completely empty your bladder.
Avoid pushing to empty your bladder, as this can weaken your pelvic floor muscles over time.
Avoid excessive fluid intake 3 to 4 hours before bedtime and empty your bladder before going to bed.
Be careful! The following factors may increase urine leakage episodes and the urge to urinate, and decrease your bladder’s capacity to hold urine:
Fatigue
Urinary tract infection
Feeling anxiety or stress, feeling emotional
Cold and humid weather
Illness
You need to be aware of your physical and mental health to better predict urine leakage and the urge to urinate. It is best to wear incontinence products when you are feeling unwell.