Vomit kit - tips and tricks!

[dumpling123]

Hello fellow parents!

We've had a few rounds of vomiting in our house with preschoolers and I've resigned myself to the fact that I need to plan better for it.

Am thinking of creating a little "vomit emergency response kit" for each bedroom with black sack / kitchen roll / wipes / spare sheet / spare mattress protector / towel in each.

Can anyone recommend any other bits to keep in it for the immediate "oh shit, there's vomit everywhere"? Or any pro-tips to help in general?

Anti bac spray, wet wipes, and puppy pads. Know where your spare bowl/bucket is.

Puppy pads are a great idea! Could use them on top of sheet with towel on top to soak up any future vomits. Thank you!

We have these in every room and the car. They make clean up so much easier.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Easy-Solutions-Disposable-Bowls-1000ml/dp/B0B9Y81DWZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?crid=2HYZ98CM3W39D&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.924EQ2b97XzTp73dphMDc-pLhlBl6vHJez62ulMQ8k30YRKC8zTprXG4ptRaLMz-4R35fVcMHiS9jwzMDmUBxbG9wH6cqBvzErt0HJNnnDZA6KOT1bGMgsCxq1XcVUK9xJG-UZM8ZTrvwBqw2ibNQ7daHsJmNf1KORuKB5pkZMat010TFjqLXkckwRgIOgWkmKBrHWgXRSGBbqgmv58e_w._EUgrc79qE7o-KKmib1a5-WB6a-h4OH5csGZ7TVg8AY&dib_tag=se&keywords=sick+bowls&qid=1733433975&sprefix=sick%2Caps%2C94&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1

We have a silicone collapsible washing up bowl under each of our kids beds. Means we have something to give them straight away while we sort everything else out

Great idea! Have them added to shopping basket.
Do they hold their contents long enough to empty and throw out or does the cardboard leak quickly?

Simple tip. My daughter's bed has: mattress, mattress protector, sheet : mattress protector, sheet on it. Any incident, whip off the top two layers and you are good to go again.

I have a big plastic tub with handles. I use as a laundry basket but doubles up a a great sick bucket as is very big and catches all the sick. Lob a towel down. It is so reassuring the no actual mess has ever ended up on the floor. To date😀

Body spill granules, you throw them on top of bodily fluids and they absorb it so you can sweep/ hoover them up - some cat litter does the same.

Spare duvet already made up and ready to go.

When you see a bout of it looming (eg. child A randomly chucks & has a fever, & there are other dc who'll inevitably catch it) - layer the beds.

So on top of each dc's usual sheet, add a binliner opened out with an old towel/fleece blanket on top. Then put another sheet over this. This layer can be repeated if you're expecting a really pukey night.

If you have a distressed dc chucking up at 2am, you can then just gather up the soiled top layers & they can hop back in to bed without you needing to re-make everything.

Dishwasher tab zip lock bags make great sick bags! Useful for the car too.

We use blue plastic sick bags that you can get on Amazon. We bought them for travelling but they are now dotted around all over the place, just in case. I can almost always tell when DS is about to be sick and I just grab them now.

Bucket with a black bin bag liner and sawdust in the bottom (reduces splashback).

If they can't reliably hit the bucket then towels around the bed/bucket.

Double or triple layering of beds.

Spare duvets/blankets.

Vicks for under the nose if you have to deal with vomit.

Somebody you can rely on that is better at vomit than you, so you can pass it all over to them....

Wipe door handles , light switches and remote controls with anti bacterial wipes to reduce the risk of transmission.
Replace toothbrushes with new ones once everyone has recovered.

Some brilliant suggestions here, thank you all very much. I'm going to get the beds layered up and lots of towels on standby. I really like the idea of a spare duvet ready to go too - genius!

Disposable gloves. Air freshener.

An antibacterial wipe won't don't anything for a stomach bug virus. You need bleach.

For cleanup: Have a spray bottle of Sterizar. Norovirus and similar stomach bugs are notoriously difficult to kill. Two things do work: Sterizar or a combination of hot water and bleach. We lived in The Vomit House for a long run when the kids were small and bringing stomach bugs home every second. If one of my kids uttered the words, “Freddie was sick all over the reading corner at school today,” a fairy died. Worst words ever because you know what’s coming: Home will soon become Camp Puke.

Anyway, I swear, Sterizar absolutely reduced our exposure and subsequent illnesses. I would spray it on the kids’ book bags, shoes, wipe the railings, doorknobs, remotes, screens. I doused everything in Sterizar. All winter, I’d give the surfaces a spray with it and just let it sit on the worktop for a bit before wiping.
I am really promoting Sterizar! I swear I don’t own or work for the company. But this was such a game changer.

Also, have a tub of sodium bicarbonate in the cupboard. If you get vomit on carpet or on a sofa, clean what you can manually, then let the sodium bicarbonate sit on the stained/affected area for 24 hours. It’ll absolutely kill nasty smells. Miraculous stuff. Get a tub off Amazon.

The big packets of bicarbonate of soda.(the ones you get in cleaning section not the wee baking tubs)z.
As soon as you've scraped up the actual vomit as best you can and given it a sponge with a cloth, sprinkle liberal amounts of bicarb all over- throw a towel on top and leave for a few hours before scraping off and hoovering. Kills the smell.

@SerenityNowInsanityLater beat me to it but nothing can beat bicarbonate for getting rid of that awful smell.

My top tip is to later up the bed with towels; they catch the vomit and can be easily rinsed out without having to change the whole bed in the middle of the night. We use our oldest and biggest ones - one on top of the sheet and another on top of the duvet cover then when kid vomits just whip it off and replace. When we’ve had particularly horrendous bouts of sickness this has been the thing that has saved my sanity 🤣

Bins with bin liners in each room so you can pull the liner out quickly and have a bin handy.
Pre made up duvets and pillows in draws so your not having to make new ones up.
Can of dettol spray to hand.
Layer the bed, mattress protector, fitted sheet, mattress protector fitted sheet. I always tried to do 3 layers and always used waterproof protectors so we only needed to scoop all the bedding up in one go and there was a clean layer underneath.
Cot protectors are a good size to just slide under the pillow when getting back into bed in case the vomiting continues. If you’re lucky the rest of the bed can be saved in the bucket is missed. Towels are just as good.
Keep soft toys to a minimum on the bed or at the top of the bed. Anything special keep out of the way, same if it can’t be put in the washing machine.
Everything is washed twice with white vinegar to get the smell out before put on a normal wash.
if you have carpeted floors buy cheap rugs to go next to beds that your happy to bin if too damaged.
Don’t try moving them mid vomiting, my DH always dose this, it just causes chaos and spreads the damage. If they are sick in bed let them keep being sick in the same spot and wait for a break to move them.
Have a plan, one parent dose the cleaning one parent cleans up child/ren. My DH dose the clean up bed change, I clean sick child and cuddle them with a bucket close by until their bed is ready to get back in.

A glow stick in the sick bowl next to the bed, so if they wake up in the night and need to vomit they can easily see where to aim

Most of ours have been mentioned - sick powder, collapsible washing up bowl (also a mini one for the car), towels on the floor, spare bedding on hand. DD is the sort of child who is sick when she coughs a lot, so we’ve had many opportunities to fine tune our sick response.

We also have a collapsible laundry basket and because DD is still quite small, if there is only one of us available then it’s towel on the floor - sit her on it and wet flannel over face and hair (assuming she doesn’t need a shower), clean jimjams and a cuddle and then sit her in the laundry basket so she can’t amble back over to the bed area. Then sick powder on the floor, strip the bed, remake the bed, DD out of laundry basket, sicky sheets into laundry basket, resettle her. Then hose the sheets down in the shower but into the laundry basket so the water can be tipped down the loo, and use the basket to carry soggy sheets downstairs to soak/wash.

We have four sets of bedding but I get really twitchy when we’re down to two, so generally I wash one set in a quick wash and tumble so we have an apocalypse situation spare set. Assuming we haven’t used it, I then re-wash on a hotter cycle with Napisan and/or the dettol laundry cleanser stuff the next morning.

Oh! And a spare set of pjs with each spare set of bedding. If it sounds like we’re in for a rough night, the first spare set is left out in a prominent place ready to grab.

I put a washable bathmat next to each child's bed