How to Stop Period Leaking at Night

Learning how to sleep on your period without leaking can take some getting used to – and some planning.

Because there’s nothing better than a good night sleep (especially when combating PMS fatigue!), we’re sharing our favourite tips on how not to leak on your period at night.

How to Stop period leaking at night

Here are a few suggestions on how to stop period leaking at night:

1. Use pads with wings
   
   Not only do pads with wings stay in place better during all your tossing and turning throughout the night, they also protect the sides of your knickers where the wings wrap around in case your undies do shift while you’re off in lalaland.
   
   Always Ultra with wings are a great option because they turn liquid into gel – and gel can’t leak!

2. Change your pad right before going to bed
   
   Changing your pad right before you go to bed ensures you get the maximum amount of absorption from your period protection.
   
   For example, Always Ultra pads provide up to 8 hours of leakage protection. Putting on a new pad just before you hop under the covers means you get the full 8 hours of absorbency.

3. Use overnight pads
   
   Always Ultra overnight pads are longer and fuller in back for extra coverage in the right places when you’re lying down. It doesn’t matter what position you sleep in, Always Overnight are likely to catch your period blood before it makes its way to your knickers.
   
   Because Always Ultra pads use special gel technology to lock away menstrual fluid in an uber thin absorbent core, they don’t feel bulky even though they give you full coverage.

4. Wear a tampon
   If you’re sleeping for under 8 hours, go ahead and wear a tampon. Because tampons are worn inside your body, you won’t leak while shifting around during your sleep.
   
   If you have a habit of oversleeping, this isn’t the right option for you as wearing tampons for more than 8 hours increases your risk of getting infections. So, if you are likely to hit the snooze button a bunch, opt for a pad instead.

5. Get out of bed slowly in the morning
   
   If you’re wearing a pad to prevent period leaks at night, it may be a good idea to get up slowly. Because of gravity, your menstrual blood will have pooled in your vagina instead of coming out all at once.
   
   This means that when you get up, the menstrual fluid that collected in your vagina will come out all at once. In order to avoid a leak at this point, get out of bed slowly.

Now that we’ve gotten some of the tips down, let’s understand why sleeping on your period without leaking can require some finesse.

First, let’s start with the fact that you’re sleeping for a lot of hours – more than you would normally go without checking your pad or tampon.

This means that you have to make double and triple sure that you’re wearing the right protection.

Next, you’re sleeping (obvi!) – so you might not feel if you need to change your pad or tampon, which can result in surprise period leaks at night.

Then there’s the issue of angles and gravity. When you sleep, you’re lying down for an extended period of time. This means that the areas that need coverage are different than the ones when you’re going about your day – mostly vertically, we might add.

Being horizontal for so long means gravity will make your menstrual fluid fall to one side of your knickers or another.

Lastly, you shift around a lot while you sleep. This can make your knickers bunch up in different positions, which means you need a different kind of coverage if you want to avoid period leaks at night.