please help vomiting ds

[Heathcliffscathy]

14 months. some diaorhea (sp?) on thurs. vomited for the first time on thursday afternoon, his whole lunch. had some dinner, vomited most of that up. had bottle of milk before bed, kept that down and slept v well. no diaorhea yesterday, but loose poos iyswim.

yesterday tiny bit of posset in the morning, but otherwise was not sick at all all day. did not have much food, but had 2 yoghurts and some bread and most of his milk before bed. woke up at 5am had pooed (loose but not totally liquid), never usually poos at night. went back to sleep after i changed him.

this morning had breakfast yoghurt, kiwi fruit, raisins (wouldn't have toast, wouldn't have weetabix) and vomited whole lot up (vomited 6 times in total, until clear).

had some milk and plenty water. had little bit of sweet potato as lunchtime. has just sicked it up.

is well in himself, less energy than usual, but no rash, no temperature to speak of, wouldn't describe him as listless.

nhs direct have advised carrying on feeding him everything he'd usually have, and have said that they don't advise no food for 24 hours as before. cause they said i sounded worried they referred it to dr who said if he carries on being sick i should take him to walk in clinic in hospital to get 'his throat checked'.

sorry for long windedness. my instinct is to stop feeding him, either totally apart from water, or just give him milk. i really don't want to take him to a walk in, and wait for hours to see a dr who will just advise me to keep him hydrated (i am)...

this is the first time he's been ill like this (we've been very lucky)

any advice at all v v welcome...please?

x

I'm not a nutritionist, but kiwi sounds very acid. Would it be worth excluding that?

Oh- and keep the liquid going in.

Stay off the solid food or only give him dry toast or bread, ie with nothing on it, or maybe just a smear of marmite or jam or honey. A lot of the foods you have given him will irritate his stomach and should be avoided for about two or three days after the last vomiting episode, ie yoghurt.

Not sure what you should do about the milk as he is still quite young. Once he is older, you don't give milk either for two or three days. Wil he dring diluted fruit juice or squash? If so, I would give him that instead of milk.

I have always been advised to not give them any dairy products when they have an upset stomach as it aggrivates it.
You are best sticking with bland foods & lots of fluids.

Orange juice also aggrivates an upset stomach apparantly.

Ooh yes, didn't mean orange juice when I said juice. Sorry. Thinking more of apple or pineapple juice, highly diluted.

i know, that's what i thought, but nhs direct woman said give him everything including dairy.

i think i'm going to stick to water, milk and dry toast like you say. i've just made a chicken broth (chicken and carrots and celery and leeks in cold water, simmered forever type thing)...wonder if that would be a good thing to give him (the clear broth that is)?

our house smells of vom

Might be worth checking about milk in a child a young as yours. The youngest any of mine have been when they have had a tummy bug was ds3 this summer when he was 18 months. We kept him off diary for three days as we do with our older children, but your ds is only 14 months, so I am not sure whether they should have milk or not. If you do feel you should give him milk, try diluting it with water (half and half) and see if that stays down.

Liquid ammonia mixed with water and used to wash surfaces is very good for eliminating the vomit smell, as is putting any vinegar at all in a bowl with some water and leaving it to stand in the room. I know that sounds wierd, but it does work for some reason.

Poor you!
My ds2 (21mths) was sick in his cot just before Christmas & even though I had washed every bit of bedding & his pyjamas, the room still smelt of vomit all day.
He also had a tiny bit in his hair & after 6 hair washes his hair still smelt just as bad!
You have my sympathy!

How about plain boiled rice? I agree you would be best giving him plain bland foods, if only for one or two meals, and maybe a watered down milk feed. Even if the sickness has passed it's bestto treat his stomach gently at first as it's likely to be irritated and will throw back at you whatever is difficult to digest!

Hi Sophable, hope some if this might help you. In Nov my dd(now 15mnths) had a bad tummy bug that sounds very similar.
Like others here my hv told me to stay away from dairy things. After a day of vomiting everything in sight I started to give her dioralyte fluids. SHe had become really dehydrated so we ended up in A&E and they said to use a syringe to give just really small amounts at a time. We spent ages giving 1ml each minute to build her up to larger amounts.
It took a lot of patience I can tell you but it did work. I did this for the next couple of days and she did not eat anything else. My hv and doctor told me not to worry about getting her back onto milk or solids too fast that she would be fine without them for a while.

I started her on really dry toast and then introduced some food but with her it took over a week before she was at this stage so depends on how bad the virus hits I guess.

with the milk we started to introduce 1 part milk 4 parts water at the start and then built it up again.

hope this helps.

thanks carameli

he seems ok at the moment, has gone for some fresh air with dh!

we have some diorilyte (sp?) packets so will try that

thanks everybody...will update when he's better (v soon i hope!)

I feel really strongly about this... I think most people get the treatment wrong for tummy bugs, and then it takes longer to get rid of it. Most tummy bugs should be gone within 1/2 day if you do the right things...but then, I didn't know the right treatment for getting rid of tummy bugs myself until I read Chris Green's books.

ONLY WATER for at least 3 hours after the last vomitting episode, preferably longer, if your child isn't too miserable. Give a little sip of water every 5-10 minutes, and that's it. Don't think juice, although dioralyte is ok and breastmilk is usually ok. Anything you give them with calories in it aside from breastmilk is just feeding the tummy bug. Don't look it as starving the child, because anything you give the child with calories in it will just feed the tummy bug. You aren't feeding the child any more, you are starving the tummy bug out. Little sips of water may come up, but a lot of liquid will get absorbed, too, if you give it steadily.

When the child is very hungry and seems to have brightened up at least 3 hours after last vomitting & preferably overnight with an older child/person try a very small amount of food and wait 15 minutes to see how it settles. Then repeat. It doesn't actually matter what you feed them initially (olive oil or cow's milk is as good as dry toast). Although, personally, I would go for something that is easy to vomit back up if they do sick up again.

The point is to starve out the tummy bug while giving fluids to keep them hydrated.

Someone I know just kept feeding her children juice when they had tummy bugs and the poor things couldn't get better... it made me so sad ; after almost a week of having tummy bug one little girl ended up in hospital, the mother wouldn't believe me about starving the damn microbes out & kept trying her on food too soon, keeping the tummy bugs alive.

zebra (no longer grumpy?) thank you so much, sounds like really good advice. it will have been 5 hours before we try him on some clear broth this evening...and well see how that goes...if that stays down, i'll give him some milk before bed...

thanks so much for the advice everyone.

xxx

Please don't come down on me like a ton of bricks but I'm always told that the best thing to eat and drink in this situation is bannanas and coke!! Not very good for a 14mo baby though.
Zebras advice sounds a bit better!!
Hope he gets better soon.

NBG, i think ds would be bouncing off the walls if i gave him coke given that i don't even really give him fruitjuice much (nothing against fruitjuice, but he loves water, so i figure, stick to that while it lasts)!

good luck sophable, I know exactly how you are feeling. The episode in Nov with my dd was the first time she'd had anything like this. It scarey seeing them so helpless.

what zebra said was just what I was told about starving the tummy bug. I certinly worked here.

I completly agree with you! DD started with vomiting and dioareah on tuesday but I just starved her and gave her lots of water and some bread later in the day. It sounds awful but it cleared up in the same day so it must have worked. You can't beat lot's of water and fresh air.

being a total idiot, cause he was running into kitchen pointing at fridge and screaming we gave him some broth...promptly vomited it all up.

so i guess nothing now until tomorrow (looks like we're not going to get any sleep tonight?)???

OH no poor little thing. I second Diaralyte and stop feeding him for a few hours. Hope he is better soon xx

has been screaming his head off and thrashing around for the last 10 mins as we won't give him any food.

Quick call your babysitter and come to the cinema with us

i know i'm going on...and all you seasoned mothers are probably rolling your eyes cause this is just something that happens when they're little, but he's so upset that we won't give him food (i think)...but we shouldn't give him anything tonight should we?

put him down to sleep. he had 6 oz of rehydration fluids (phew) but has screamed his head off since we put him down...

if this goes on, should we try him on milk? his last vomit was a 5pm.

dd had a vomiting bug which lasted over 5 wks, the minute we stopped dairy the vomiting stopped, many kids get a temp intolerance to dairy to loss of vital tummy bacteris, acidophulus powder helps.
xx