Small, frequent sips of clear liquids are the single best thing you can drink to ease vomiting and prevent dehydration. Water, broth, and oral rehydration solutions top the list, but timing and volume matter just as much as what’s in your cup. Drinking too much too fast can trigger another round of vomiting, so the strategy is slow and steady.
Wait Before You Sip
After a vomiting episode, give your stomach 30 to 60 minutes of complete rest before trying any liquid. This pause lets the stomach muscles settle. When you do start drinking, take tiny amounts: one to two tablespoons (15 to 30 mL) every 20 minutes or so. If that stays down, gradually increase the volume over the next few hours. The goal for the first 24 hours is at least one ounce (30 mL) per hour, which is far less than most people think they need.
Gulping a full glass of water when you feel thirsty is one of the most common mistakes. Your stomach is irritated, and a large volume of liquid stretching it out will likely come right back up. Think of it as a teaspoon-by-teaspoon project, not a glass-by-glass one.
Best Liquids to Start With
Stick to clear liquids you can see through. The classic options include:
- Water: Plain, still water is the safest starting point. Flat or lightly carbonated are both fine.
- Oral rehydration solutions: These contain a balanced mix of salt and sugar designed to replace what vomiting strips from your body. They work better than plain water for preventing dehydration because they help your intestines absorb fluid more efficiently.
- Broth: Chicken or vegetable broth provides sodium and a small amount of calories, which helps when you can’t eat anything solid.
- Diluted apple or white grape juice: Pulp-free and mixed with equal parts water to reduce the sugar concentration.
- Ice pops or ice chips: Sucking on ice chips naturally limits your intake to small amounts. Plain ice pops (without milk or fruit bits) work the same way.
Flat ginger ale is a popular home remedy, and there’s some logic behind it. Ginger has mild anti-nausea properties. But most commercial ginger ales contain very little actual ginger and a lot of sugar, so a ginger tea made from real ginger root is a better choice if you want the benefit.
Ginger and Peppermint Tea
Ginger tea is one of the most studied natural options for nausea. It appears to speed up the rate at which your stomach empties, which can reduce that heavy, queasy feeling. You can steep a few thin slices of fresh ginger in hot water for five to ten minutes, then sip it slowly once it cools to a comfortable temperature.
Peppermint tea works differently. It relaxes the smooth muscles in your digestive tract, which can calm spasms that trigger the urge to vomit. However, that same muscle-relaxing effect loosens the valve between your stomach and esophagus, so peppermint is a poor choice if you’re prone to heartburn or acid reflux. If reflux isn’t an issue for you, weak peppermint tea sipped at room temperature can be soothing.
What Not to Drink
Some drinks feel instinctively right when you’re sick but actually make vomiting worse. Avoid these for at least three to five days after symptoms start:
- Milk and dairy-based drinks: Dairy is harder to digest when your gut is inflamed and can increase nausea.
- Coffee and caffeinated tea: Caffeine stimulates stomach acid production and speeds up gut motility, both of which can trigger more vomiting.
- Alcohol: It irritates the stomach lining and acts as a diuretic, pulling more fluid out of your body when you’re already losing it.
- Full-strength fruit juice: The high sugar concentration can draw water into your intestines through osmosis, potentially causing diarrhea on top of vomiting. If you want juice, dilute it by at least half.
- Sports drinks at full strength: Similar to juice, many sports drinks are high in sugar. They’re better than soda, but oral rehydration solutions are specifically formulated for illness and work more effectively.
Pregnancy Nausea Is Different
If your vomiting is related to morning sickness, the same sipping strategy applies, but vitamin B6 is worth knowing about. A typical approach is 10 mg to 25 mg taken three or four times a day, and research shows no sign of harm to the fetus at these doses. Some people find that combining small sips of ginger tea with vitamin B6 controls nausea well enough to keep fluids down. Staying under 200 mg of B6 per day is the general safety threshold.
Cold liquids tend to be better tolerated during pregnancy nausea than warm ones. Keeping a bottle of ice-cold water or frozen fruit pops nearby and taking a few sips or bites before getting out of bed in the morning can reduce the intensity of early-day nausea.
Helping Children Keep Fluids Down
Children dehydrate faster than adults, so the stakes are higher and the volumes need to be smaller. For babies under one year, use a syringe or spoon to give one to two teaspoons (5 to 10 mL) every few minutes. For toddlers and older children, aim for half an ounce to one ounce (one to two tablespoons) every 20 minutes for the first few hours.
A medicine syringe is often easier than a cup for young children because it controls the amount precisely. If a child refuses to sip, freezing an oral rehydration solution into ice pops can make it more appealing. Avoid giving children plain water exclusively for long stretches, because they need the electrolytes that rehydration solutions provide, especially sodium and potassium.
Signs That Fluids Aren’t Enough
Most vomiting resolves within 12 to 24 hours and responds well to the slow-sipping approach. But dehydration can become serious if fluids won’t stay down at all. Watch for these warning signs in yourself or your child: no urination for eight hours or more, a dry mouth with no saliva, sunken-looking eyes, dizziness when standing, or skin that stays “tented” when you pinch it rather than snapping back flat. In children, a sunken soft spot on the top of the head is an additional red flag. Confusion, rapid breathing, or a weak, fast pulse indicate severe fluid loss that needs medical attention quickly.
If you’ve been vomiting for more than 24 hours and can’t keep even small sips down, oral rehydration alone isn’t going to solve the problem, and intravenous fluids may be necessary to catch up.