Not In Kansas Anymore (NIKA)

The Joys of Vomit

After five hours of dealing with more than a half dozen vomitings by Dorothy, along with attendant unhappiness and noise, I can report that in my experience, there are no joys of (baby) vomit, except perhaps when it stops.

Today was mostly a good day. Dorothy and I had fun together this morning, and then in the afternoon we went to the Wrentham Village outlet mall with Scott, Susan, and Ian (Ian is a couple months younger than Dorothy; they can be seen together in a couple of the online photos). We had a relaxing couple of hours there. In the middle of our time there, Dorothy got hungry at her normal time. I'd brought along some dairy-free formula, in order to not have to worry about re-heating expressed breastmilk in the middle of an outdoor mall. She'd gotten some formula right after Elizabeth got out of the hospital, so I figured everything would be fine. Stupid me.

I'd forgotten how much formual we'd given Dorothy a few weeks ago. Turns out Elizabeth had nursed a bit, then we'd given Dorothy about 3 ounces before bedtime. Today, combining the fact that babies on formula drink more total volume than babies on breastmilk and that Dorothy normally drinks 5 ounces of breastmilk at a time, I gave her 6 ounces of formula. I couldn't refrigerate the 8 ounce can, so I figured I might as well give her what I could, because the rest was going in the garbage.

A couple of hours later, shortly after I'd gotten back home, Dorothy had a very large spit-up. Not fun, but it wasn't out of the realm of an occasional spit-up from before. I cleaned her (and me) up, and she seemed to be feeling OK. After a bit I put her in the exersaucer so that I could run downstairs and throw in a load of clothes. When I got back up, she was fussing (not shrieking uncontrollably), and had obviously vomited again, this time onto the exersaucer.

This second incident required her clothes to be changed, so I tossed a paper towel onto the mess in the exersaucer and took her to the changing table. As I was changing her, vomit #3 came up. At this point I was getting concerned, because the total volume was getting to be pretty big, some large fraction of her previous (formula) feeding. I called the pediatrician's office after hours, and a nurse called right back. She suggested waiting ~20 minutes after her last vomit before trying to give her either Pedialyte (basically, baby Gatorade, which we didn't have in the house) or some expressed breastmilk, only a tiny bit at a time. Dorothy had vomit #4 while I was on the phone. The nurse mentioned that there was a stomach virus going around, but so far Dorohty didn't have any of the other symptoms.

At this point it's around 5:40pm. At about 6pm, #5 came up. (Each vomit was getting smaller in volume but thicker in consistency.) But Dorothy was falling asleep in my arms, then waking up to scream (or vomit), then falling back asleep. The 20-minute "safety net" passed around when Elizabeth got home, so she tried nursing. No dice - Dorothy wasn't at all interested. I ran out and bought some Pedialyte, and she still wasn't interested.

I was getting concerned that Dorothy might be getting dehydrated, as well as hungry (even if she was refusing food). We called the pediatrician again around 7pm, during which call vomit #6 came up (at least it was a whole hour since the previous one). BTW, Dorothy's temperature was normal - 97.6. After reviewing all the symptoms, the doctor suggested we try getting even a tiny bit of fluids into her, and she'd call back in an hour. Dorothy was so lethargic throughout, that we were getting pretty worried. Over the course of the hour, though, we were able to get about 10ml (just over one-third of one ounce) of Pedialyte into her. 10 minutes before the doctor called back, Dorothy 'woke up' and would even give us half a grin. Since she seemed to be starting to get back to normal, and we'd gotten some fluids in without them coming back, the doctor recommended keeping an eye on her, and if she didn't produce a wet diaper within a few hours, to call back.

Well, we get another ounce or so of Pedialyte and breast milk into Dorothy over the next hour, then we let her take a real nap. When she woke up, she latched right onto Elizabeth and nursed just like normal. Then she was a completely happy, placid baby. No more vomiting (so far). So we think she's all better.

My theory is that the problem was a combination of too much formula (esp. after not having had any for weeks), being out in the sun and being a bit warm, and getting really jostled around at the mall and in the car. We'll know by morning if it was that, or if she has a bug. Thankfully for now, though, she's got lots of nummies in her and she's sleeping peacefully!

Posted by Tom Nugent at August 24, 2004 10:41 PM