Toddler with gastroenteritis...

[Yahyahs22]

Posting here for traffic...sorry!

My 2 year old has had gastroenteritis for 5 days now, unable to hold barely anything down still. I've heard conflicting advice about food. Some say don't feed him anything solid and just water and others say feed as normal.
He keeps asking for food and most of it just comes straight back up again but he is so hungry poor thing. Any advise would be so helpful!

Dry food and water - so toast, crackers, rice cakes. Shouldn't irritate his stomach, and at least if it comes straight back it's not too caustic and what he can keep down will be filling. lots of water, dioralyte if he'll tolerate it to replace lost salts etc. It's so horrible, you have my sympathy!

Have you spoken to a doctor OP? If not, I would call your GP or 111 for advice.

AFAIK you DON'T starve a DC like you would an adult in this situation. You should always give water (of course), but also rehydration sachets (dioralyte) and bland, plain food such as rice, dry toast, plain dry biscuits (e.g. arrowfoot biscuits). You should not give any dairy products, so don't be tempted to give milk.

Thank you both! It really is so hard and to top it off my 3 month old has got it now.
He was taking dioralyte really well for the first couple of days but now won't even entertain it so I'm just keeping up with his water intake, small sips often.
He asks for so many foods and it's so hard telling him no as I know they'll just come back up and he gets so distressed when he's being sick.

And yes he's been in hospital twice so far as he got very dehydrated so needed an IV

Poor baby :( Hope he's better soon OP. It's been such a dreadful summer for bugs.

You need to keep his sugar levels up, he's at risk for hypoglycaemia so need to give him more than water.
Sugary juice, sugary ice lollies etc

Hes now getting through an ice lolly, thanks for the advice.

The doctor said its been awful this year and has just been wiping the little ones out :(