How to Drink Water in Bed Without Sitting Up

A hiking water bladder on a hanger hooked over the bed frame, with its tube running up to the pillow. That's what somebody's husband rigged in r/BabyBumps, so a drink in the night no longer meant rolling over and sitting up. One reply in the thread:

Oh my god. Where were you last night? I cried because I got really thirsty but I had just rolled over. What a brilliant idea.
u/tasty_unicorn_farts, in r/BabyBumps

The thing on the hanger is the water bladder out of a hydration pack: the soft bag hikers carry on their backs, with a long tube and a mouthpiece you bite to open. CamelBak is the name every thread uses, brand or off-brand, and its Crux reservoir is the plain version of the thing. Hang the bag by the bed, clip the tube to the pillow, and a drink is a turn of the head away.

If rolling over or sitting up for a drink is a chore, this is how to get water without getting out of bed. It's the same answer whether the reason is late pregnancy, a bad back, an illness that keeps you flat for hours or hands that can't be trusted with a cup. Three groups of people arrived at it separately, and none of them is selling anything.

Who's drinking from a hiking bladder in bed

In r/spinalcordinjuries, a C5/C6 quadriplegic listing her adaptive kit keeps a bladder on the side table instead of a cup in bed. A cup, she says, she'd knock over and spill in the night even with a lid on. The tube reaches the middle of the bed, so she has water all night.

Six years on, in the same subreddit, someone with a C4/C5 injury described theirs:

I started using a hiking hydration bag like the Camelback for in bed at night to get a drink anytime I wanted. It just lays at the top of the bed beside my pillow and I put clamp on the hose to clip it to my pillowcase.
u/C4C5, in r/spinalcordinjuries

It's probably better known now, they add, but it wasn't when they were first injured. They went over a decade without being able to get themselves a drink in bed.

The third voice is a hiker in r/lifehacks who hangs the reservoir on a hook behind the headboard between trips. They take a sip in the night without even sitting up, and unhook it when there's a trail to walk. Pregnant sleepers in 2014, a hiker in 2019, quads in 2020 and 2026: the same setup, worked out four times over.

How to set it up

Hang it, or just lay it down. A hanger hooked over the bed frame, a hook behind the headboard, the side table or the top of the mattress beside the pillow. All four turn up in the threads, and all four work. What matters is that the tube reaches your mouth without you moving.
Clip the tube to the pillowcase. The C4/C5 owner puts a clamp on the hose so the mouthpiece stays where their mouth is.
Keep your head above the bag. A reply to the C5/C6 owner says to hang the bag lower than your head, especially if you can't move away from the mouthpiece. The bite valve only opens when you bite it and closes when you let go, she answers, so it shouldn't run on its own. Hang it low anyway.

Close on the pillow from the side: Digby flat on his back, eyes soft and half closed, a clear tube running across the pillowcase under a small clip to a mouthpiece at his lips, the tube dropping off the bottom edge of the frame toward the floor.

How do you keep the water fresh?

The hiker's own thread put it to them: how old is that water in there? They refill it about once a week.

At home you can do better than that, because the kitchen is a few steps away. Treat it like a glass: tip out what's left in the morning, rinse it and refill it. Give the tube a proper wash now and then too, since it's the part a quick rinse doesn't reach.

For the deeper clean, follow SectionHiker's guide to cleaning a reservoir: hot water with a couple of spoonfuls of baking soda, or a little bleach, rinsed out completely. Then leave it open to air-dry so no damp is trapped inside.

If you stop using it for a while, one tip in the pregnancy thread is to clean it and store it in a bag in the freezer. The hiking guide says the same: stored empty in the freezer, or dried out after use, nothing grows in it.

The bottle two quads name instead

In the thread with the C4/C5 owner, two people with high-level injuries name a different object: a Giraffe Bottle. One, C5/C6 herself, says it makes it easy to drink from bed; the other loves them as a high-level quad.

The Giraffe Bottle is a bottle on a long bendable neck that mounts to a bed, wheelchair or desk. Its bite valve opens under pressure and closes when released. Same drinking action, with the bottle held by a mount instead of a bag hung on a hook, and nothing to tip over.

Is it OK to drink water lying down?

People ask, but the NHS page on swallowing problems says nothing about posture. What it does say is that coughing or choking when you eat or drink is a sign of a swallowing problem. The person to see is a GP, who can refer you to a speech and language therapist. If that's you, it's a doctor's appointment, not a shopping question.

Same view as the cover: Digby asleep under the blanket with a small smile, the clear tube clipped to the pillowcase and running to his mouth, and only a lamp and a book on the nightstand where the glass used to be.

Get the Crux on the nightstand tonight, lower than your pillow, with the tube clipped to the pillowcase. Tip it out and rinse it when you get up. With a high-level injury, start with the Giraffe Bottle the two quads name instead.