The Curious Incident of the Vomit in the Night Time

Back in mid February, Clemmie developed the strange habit of waking up in the night and vomiting.  A lot.  Of course she was miserable about it, but once we cleaned her up she'd fall right back asleep, until she woke again.  And again.  And a third time.

Why only at night?  Strange, but at least she was happy and playful and normal during the day.  The doctor said to let it run its course.  But something like that is just too tiresome to deal with (for both of us), and as she got into the second week of vomiting every night, she also developed diarrhea, an ear infection, and eventually dehydration.  


At this point, I must commend myself on developing razor-sharp vomit-catching skills.  I have a small toy sand pail that I started keeping next to the crib at all times, as well as a stack of wash cloths.  When I hear a scream in the night, I bolt down the hall, grab the bucket, and sit her up just in time to catch the deluge.  I'm not always in position for the first heave, but a lot of laundry has been deterred by my precision mothering.

Back to the doc!  The ear infection was easy to treat with a course of antibiotics, and the doc also sent us home with Rinitadine for reflux  (to attempt to treat the mysterious night incidents) and recommended we stop all dairy.

So the night-vomits stopped.  I took the emergency blue sick pail and stack of washcloths away from the side of the crib, stopped the Rinitadine, and put her back on a totally normal diet.

Less than two weeks later, she had another flare up.  Diarrhea by day, vomit by night.  It lasted for 3 days, then she went into remission.

After another 10-days, Grandma inquired to see if she how she was feeling. Clemmie started throwing up that night.  More diarrhea.  3 days long.  We went back to the doctor.


I feel that Occam's razor is really playing a heavy hand in this diagnosis.  The fact that she's had diarrhea with each episode is good (good!?) news, because it rules out most of the brain issues and pinched/blocked intestinal issues that might cause vomiting without diarrhea.  As far as we can gather, Clementine picked up 3 separate stomach viruses, and recovered from each in due course.  Her inexplicable signature move while recovering from a virus seems to be restricting vomiting to a nocturnal activity.  Really??


As of this morning, she's in remission again and feeling happy.  The washing machine is happy, Clemmie's room-mate is happy, and I'm happy.  But I'm keeping the blue pail by the crib for a few more weeks.  Say a prayer.