Small sips of water, oral rehydration solutions, and clear broths are the most effective drinks when you’re throwing up. The priority is replacing lost fluids and electrolytes without overwhelming your stomach. What you drink matters, but so does how much and how quickly you drink it.
Start With Small Sips, Not Full Glasses
After vomiting, your stomach is irritated and primed to reject anything that hits it too fast. Gulping down a full glass of water, even plain water, can trigger another round. The goal for the first 24 hours is at least 1 ounce (about 2 tablespoons) per hour, taken in small sips spread over several minutes rather than all at once. If you keep that down for an hour or two, you can gradually increase the amount.
Ice chips are a good starting point if even sips feel like too much. They melt slowly, delivering tiny amounts of water your stomach can handle. Once ice chips stay down comfortably, move on to slow sips of liquid.
The Best Drinks to Reach for First
Water is the simplest option, but it doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium you lose when you vomit. That’s where other drinks come in.
- Oral rehydration solutions (like Pedialyte or store-brand equivalents) are the gold standard. They contain a carefully balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and a small amount of sugar designed to help your intestines absorb water faster. They have roughly three times the sodium of a typical sports drink and about half the sugar, which makes them significantly more effective for rehydration during illness.
- Clear broth (chicken, vegetable, or bone broth) provides sodium and a small number of calories. It’s warm, easy on the stomach, and familiar, which matters when nothing sounds appealing.
- Diluted apple or white grape juice can provide some sugar for energy. Mixing juice half-and-half with water reduces its sweetness, which can be helpful since concentrated sugar sometimes worsens nausea.
- Sports drinks are a step up from plain water but aren’t ideal. They contain less sodium and more sugar than oral rehydration solutions. If it’s all you have, diluting a sports drink with equal parts water brings the sugar concentration closer to what your body can absorb efficiently.
Why Temperature Matters
Cold drinks tend to be easier to tolerate when you’re nauseated. Research on post-chemotherapy nausea found that liquids around 15°C (roughly 59°F, or cool but not ice-cold) helped patients take in more fluid and reduced nausea severity. Extremely cold drinks can cause stomach cramping in some people, so aim for cool rather than freezing. Room-temperature liquids work fine too, especially for broth or tea. The best temperature is whichever one you’re most willing to keep sipping.
Peppermint and Ginger Tea
Peppermint tea can help settle your stomach after vomiting. Peppermint relaxes the smooth muscles in your digestive tract, which may ease the spasms and cramping that come with repeated vomiting. Even the scent of peppermint has been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of nausea in chemotherapy patients. Brew it weak at first, since strong flavors can be off-putting when your stomach is sensitive.
Ginger tea is another well-studied option for nausea relief. Fresh ginger steeped in hot water, or a caffeine-free ginger tea bag, can calm the signals in your gut that trigger the urge to vomit. Both peppermint and ginger tea count toward your fluid intake, but they don’t contain meaningful electrolytes, so pair them with an oral rehydration solution or broth.
What to Avoid
Some drinks that seem helpful actually make vomiting worse. Milk and dairy-based beverages are harder to digest and can increase nausea. Coffee stimulates stomach acid production, which is the last thing you need on an irritated stomach. Alcohol is a direct stomach irritant and also dehydrates you further.
Carbonated drinks are a gray area. Flat or lightly fizzy ginger ale is a classic home remedy, and some people find the carbonation soothing. But highly carbonated sodas can bloat your stomach and trigger more vomiting. If you want to try soda, let it go flat first by stirring it or leaving it open for a while. Dark sodas like cola are technically on the clear liquid diet, but their high sugar content (around 10-12% carbohydrate) is well above what your gut absorbs efficiently during illness.
Citrus juices like orange juice and grapefruit juice are acidic enough to sting an already raw throat and irritate your stomach lining. Stick with milder options like apple or white grape juice until you’re keeping food down again.
Signs You’re Getting Dehydrated
Vomiting becomes dangerous when it leads to dehydration. Watch for dark yellow or amber-colored urine, dry mouth, dizziness when standing up, or producing very little urine over several hours. In more severe cases, the skin on the back of your hand will stay “tented” when you pinch it rather than snapping back quickly. Mild dehydration starts at around 5% loss of body weight in fluids, but you’ll feel symptoms well before reaching that point.
If you can’t keep any liquids down for more than 12 hours, or you notice signs of moderate dehydration (extreme thirst, very dark urine, rapid heartbeat), you may need intravenous fluids. Children and older adults reach dangerous dehydration levels faster, so the window for trying home rehydration is shorter with those groups.
A Practical Timeline
For the first hour or two after vomiting stops, stick to ice chips or tiny sips of water. If those stay down, move to an oral rehydration solution or clear broth, still in small amounts. By 4 to 6 hours, you can try slightly larger sips of diluted juice, peppermint tea, or ginger tea alongside your rehydration fluids. Once you’ve gone several hours without vomiting, you can start drinking more normally and consider bland solid foods like crackers or toast.
The key throughout is patience. Your stomach needs time to settle, and pushing too much liquid too fast is the most common reason people end up vomiting again after they thought they were done.