When you can’t stop throwing up, the best thing to eat is nothing at all for a few hours. Your stomach needs a short rest before you reintroduce anything. After that window, the priority shifts to small sips of fluid, then bland foods in tiny amounts. Rushing back to normal eating too quickly often triggers another round of vomiting.
Wait Before You Eat or Drink Anything
After your last episode of vomiting, give your stomach a grace period of two to three hours with nothing going in. This pause lets the muscles of your digestive tract calm down and reduces the chance that whatever you swallow comes right back up. It feels counterintuitive, especially if you’re thirsty, but even water can restart the vomiting cycle if your stomach is still irritated.
Start With Small Sips of Fluid
Once that rest period passes, begin with ice chips or tiny sips of water, about every 15 minutes. The goal is not to chug a glass but to test whether your stomach will tolerate anything at all. If plain water stays down for an hour or so, you can gradually increase the volume and switch to something with electrolytes.
An oral rehydration solution works better than plain water because glucose helps your small intestine absorb sodium and water in a one-to-one ratio. Pharmacy rehydration drinks are ideal, but if you don’t have one on hand, clear broth or a diluted sports drink will do. Aim for about 200 milliliters (roughly three-quarters of a cup) every 30 minutes once you’re tolerating fluids. Over 24 hours, a reasonable target is three to four liters of total fluid, which works out to roughly 150 milliliters per hour.
Avoid anything carbonated, caffeinated, or high in sugar during this phase. Sodas and fruit juices can pull more water into your gut and make things worse.
Ease Into Bland Foods
When you’ve kept liquids down for a few hours and your appetite starts creeping back, introduce small amounts of bland food. You may have heard of the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast), and those foods are fine starting points. But there’s no clinical evidence that you need to limit yourself to just those four items. Harvard Health notes that brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, and unsweetened dry cereals are equally easy to digest and give you more variety.
Eat small portions. A few bites every hour or two is better than sitting down to a full meal. If your stomach handles the first round well, try a little more at the next attempt. Think of it as a slow ramp-up over 12 to 24 hours rather than an on-off switch.
What to Add as You Recover
Once bland starches are staying down reliably, start adding foods that provide protein and a broader range of nutrients. Good next-step options include:
- Cooked vegetables: butternut squash, pumpkin, carrots, sweet potatoes without skin
- Lean protein: skinless chicken, turkey, or mild white fish
- Soft fats: avocado or a small amount of nut butter
- Eggs: scrambled or boiled, with minimal added fat
These foods are still gentle on the stomach but give your body the building blocks it needs to recover. Vomiting depletes energy stores and electrolytes quickly, so getting some real nutrition in within the first day or two matters.
Foods and Drinks to Avoid
While your stomach is still fragile, certain foods are far more likely to trigger another episode or slow your recovery. High-fat foods are the biggest culprit. Fat delays gastric emptying, meaning food sits in your stomach longer and creates more opportunity for nausea. Skip fried foods, creamy sauces, cheese, and rich meats until you’re fully recovered.
Spicy foods, acidic foods (citrus, tomato sauce), dairy products, alcohol, and raw vegetables with tough fiber are all worth avoiding for at least 24 to 48 hours after your last vomiting episode. Caffeine can irritate the stomach lining and also acts as a mild diuretic, which works against your rehydration efforts.
Ginger Can Help Reduce Nausea
If waves of nausea keep hitting even after your stomach is empty, ginger is one of the few natural remedies with solid clinical backing. A systematic review of randomized trials found that taking up to 1 gram of ginger per day for three or more days significantly reduced vomiting episodes. You don’t need a supplement to get there. Ginger tea, ginger chews, or even a teaspoon of fresh grated ginger steeped in hot water all deliver the active compounds. Just keep the total amount under a gram or so daily, as higher doses can sometimes cause heartburn.
Helping a Child Who Keeps Vomiting
Children dehydrate faster than adults because of their smaller body size, so the stakes are higher. The fluid replacement approach is the same in principle but scaled down: offer 1 to 2 milliliters of oral rehydration solution per kilogram of body weight, with a maximum of about 30 milliliters (one ounce) every five minutes. For a 20-kilogram (44-pound) child, that means roughly 20 to 40 milliliters per attempt.
Use a syringe, spoon, or small cup rather than a bottle or open glass. Kids tend to gulp when they’re thirsty, and too much at once will come right back up. Popsicles made from rehydration solution or diluted juice can also work well because they force a slow intake. Follow the same progression as adults: clear fluids first, then bland foods in small amounts once the vomiting has stopped for a couple of hours.
Probiotics During Recovery
If your vomiting is caused by a stomach bug, adding a probiotic alongside rehydration fluids may shorten the duration of symptoms. The best-studied strains for gastrointestinal infections are Saccharomyces boulardii and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. European guidelines recommend either of these for five to seven days as an add-on to oral rehydration. S. boulardii in particular has been shown in meta-analyses to reduce the duration of diarrhea and may also help resolve vomiting faster when combined with rehydration therapy.
Probiotics aren’t a replacement for fluids and food. Think of them as a supporting player. You can find both strains in capsule form at most pharmacies, or get some Lactobacillus through plain yogurt once your stomach can handle dairy again.
Signs of Dangerous Dehydration
Most vomiting episodes resolve on their own within 12 to 48 hours. But persistent vomiting can lead to dehydration serious enough to require medical attention. Watch for confusion, fainting, a racing heartbeat, rapid breathing, or a complete stop in urination. Dark yellow or amber urine is an early warning sign that you’re falling behind on fluids. In children, look for a dry mouth, no tears when crying, and unusual drowsiness. Any of these symptoms mean the situation has moved beyond what food and fluids at home can fix.