Why is my kid throwing up at night?

August 6, 2023 6:04 PM

Two nights in a row, my six-year-old has randomly thrown up about an hour after bedtime. No fever, no sickness I know of. I'm baffled as to what it might be.

He has no fever, no sickness I know of. Eating regularly and active/normal in the daytime. Has an uneventful dinner, bathtime, plays for awhile, normal bedtime and then boom. I clean him up he goes right back to sleep. Sent a message to the doctor but of course it is a long weekend. How worried should I be?

posted by ficbot to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

Our kid's dairy allergy was like that. On days he had milk yogurt he would "randomly" throw up at night. Not all days because his allergy is mild. But some days. The doctor might tell you to keep a very detailed food/drink log or refer you to an allergist.
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 6:22 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

My son’s lactose intolerance presents this way.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:34 PM on August 6, 2023

My six year old does this too! Just throws up at night for 2 to 3 nights in a row and is otherwise fine. We think it's triggered by fried food in his case.
posted by entropyiswinning at 7:46 PM on August 6, 2023

As per the above answers, it likely behooves you to start a food diary.

As for how worried you should be - not very. If it is once a day, and there are no other symptoms, it is not likely to be anything truly urgent, and the wait to hear back from the doctor will allow you to gather more data.

IANAD, just a parent of a former 6 year old.
posted by birdsquared at 7:59 PM on August 6, 2023

I don’t think this is very likely, but in a family member’s case, this was caused by seizure-related migraines. The kid would vomit but not have any recollection of it. Absence and partial seizures may not be easily noticeable.
posted by expialidocious at 10:14 PM on August 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

One thing we did that helped with this (because we had intermittent bouts and not a consistent pattern of getting sick consistently after certain meals) was we asked our kid to tell us if they had any hiccups, burps, or burning feelings after meals. This let us pick up on the types of foods that irritate their stomach which ended up being deep-fried food and too much lactose at any given time.
posted by openhearted at 4:26 AM on August 7, 2023

With our son, it was an allergy to corn syrup.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:34 AM on August 7, 2023

My kid did this, it was food intolerance, mostly dairy but other things too.
posted by Jubey at 6:26 AM on August 7, 2023

I would suspect acid reflux. There's lots of causes for it, so you'd have to chase that down. But the timing of the vomiting makes me think the laying down is part of the issue.
posted by jraz at 8:40 AM on August 7, 2023

My kid will do this when she's got a bad post-nasal drip. Sometimes the runny nose is apparent, sometimes it's all internal mucus stuff and we don't know she's sick until this happens.
posted by carrioncomfort at 9:06 AM on August 7, 2023 [1 favorite]