After throwing up, the best thing to eat is nothing at all, at least for a few hours. Your stomach needs a short recovery window before you ask it to process food again. Once you can keep liquids down, you can gradually move to bland, easy-to-digest foods like plain crackers, rice, or toast. The full timeline from vomiting to normal eating is usually 12 to 24 hours for most people.
Start With Small Sips, Not Food
Right after vomiting, skip food entirely and focus on tiny amounts of fluid. Suck on ice chips or take small sips of water every 15 minutes. The goal here isn’t to chug a glass of water. Your stomach is irritated, and flooding it with liquid can trigger another round of vomiting. Think of it as testing whether your stomach will cooperate.
If plain water stays down for an hour or two, you can branch out to clear fluids: broth, diluted apple juice, or an oral rehydration solution. These drinks work better than plain water because they replace the sodium and potassium you lost. Oral rehydration solutions contain a specific balance of sugar and salt that helps your intestines absorb water more efficiently. You can find them at any pharmacy, or make a rough version at home with water, a small amount of salt, and a small amount of sugar.
One thing to avoid at this stage: sports drinks and sodas. They contain far more sugar than your gut needs right now, and that excess sugar can actually pull water into your intestines and make diarrhea worse if you have it.
When to Try Solid Food
Once you’ve kept liquids down for a few hours and your appetite starts returning, you can eat. There’s no magic number of hours you need to wait. The signal is your body telling you it’s ready. For some people that’s 4 hours after the last episode. For others it’s closer to 12.
Start small. A few bites of something bland is plenty for a first meal. Good options include:
- Plain white rice or rice porridge
- Saltine crackers or plain toast
- A small portion of applesauce
- Plain boiled potatoes
- A banana
These foods are low in fat, low in fiber, and easy for a recovering stomach to break down. Eat slowly, and pay attention to how your body responds before reaching for more.
The BRAT Diet Is Outdated
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) as the go-to recovery plan after vomiting. It’s not wrong, exactly, but most experts no longer recommend restricting yourself to just those four foods. The NIDDK’s current guidance is straightforward: once your appetite returns, you can go back to eating your normal diet. Sticking to only BRAT foods for days can leave you short on protein, fat, and calories at a time when your body needs to recover.
The BRAT foods are still useful as a starting point because they’re gentle on the stomach. But you don’t need to limit yourself to them exclusively. If you feel ready for scrambled eggs, plain chicken, or oatmeal a few hours in, that’s fine. Let your appetite guide you and keep portions small for the first day.
Foods That Will Make You Feel Worse
Your stomach lining is inflamed after vomiting, so certain foods are likely to trigger nausea or discomfort even after you feel better. For the first 24 hours, avoid:
- Fatty or fried foods: These slow down digestion and sit in your stomach longer, which can make nausea worse.
- Spicy foods: They irritate an already sensitive stomach lining.
- Dairy products: Milk, cheese, and ice cream can be harder to digest when your gut is recovering, especially if you have any diarrhea alongside vomiting.
- Caffeine and alcohol: Both can dehydrate you further and irritate your stomach.
- Raw vegetables and high-fiber foods: These take more effort to digest. Save the salad for when you’re feeling fully recovered.
Ginger Can Help With Lingering Nausea
If nausea sticks around even after vomiting stops, ginger is one of the most well-studied natural options. Clinical trials have used doses ranging from 250 mg to 1 gram per day, split across three or four smaller doses. You don’t need capsules to get this benefit. A cup of ginger tea made from fresh sliced ginger root, or even flat ginger ale made with real ginger, can help settle your stomach. There’s no added benefit to taking more than about 1 gram per day.
Rehydration for Children
Kids get dehydrated faster than adults, so the approach is slightly different. For a child who has been vomiting, offer small amounts of an oral rehydration solution using a spoon or syringe every one to two minutes rather than letting them gulp from a cup. This slow, steady method is far less likely to trigger more vomiting than drinking freely.
For a mildly dehydrated child, the target is roughly 50 to 60 milliliters per kilogram of body weight over four hours. For a 20-pound (9 kg) child, that works out to about 450 to 540 ml, or roughly two cups, delivered in tiny increments over those four hours. Once the child’s appetite returns, offer their usual foods. There’s no need to restrict them to a special diet.
Signs That Dehydration Is Getting Serious
Most vomiting resolves on its own, but dehydration is the real risk. Watch for these warning signs: dark yellow urine or very little urine output, dizziness when standing, a dry mouth, unusual sleepiness, or confusion. In children, look for no tears when crying, fewer wet diapers than normal, or unusual irritability.
Seek medical care if you or your child can’t keep any fluids down at all, if vomiting lasts more than 24 hours, if there’s blood in the vomit or stool, or if a fever reaches 102°F or higher. Black or tarry stool is another sign that needs prompt attention.