How much is excessive spitting up

He or she may be swallowing too much air when sucking, or you may not be burping the baby enough during feedings. Fever will sometimes cause a baby to spit up. Milk lactose intolerance and food allergies also can cause increased spitting up. Other signs of these problems include loose and watery stools, irritability, and belly pain. Spitting up should not be confused with vomiting. Vomiting is forceful and repeated. Spitting up may seem forceful but usually occurs shortly after feeding, is effortless, and causes no discomfort.

A baby may spit up for no reason at all. Vomiting may be caused by a more serious problem, such as pyloric stenosis or gastroesophageal reflux disease. If you think your baby is vomiting, contact your doctor.

The following tips may help your baby to spit up less often. You're watching for the arching of the back, pulling away from the bottle, turning their head away from the bottle and not wanting to eat. Those would be the main symptoms that we would see with painful reflux.

If it's just a reflux, the baby is happy, one of those happy spitters, then what we recommend is frequent burping and also after eating, keeping them elevated either up on your shoulder or in your arms at about a 20 degree angle.

We don't want you to put them in car seats or any type of bouncy seat because that puts pressure on the belly and they spit up more. For babies that have reflux that seems painful, we need to hear more about the story and what symptoms they're having. We would want you to come in and we'll decide if we need to just start a medication to help with the acid so it doesn't burn when it comes up or do we need to change a formula or have mom modify her diet if the baby is breastfed.

Keep in mind that it's easy to overestimate the amount your baby has spit up based on the size of a spit-up stain. Certain signs and symptoms might indicate an underlying condition or something more serious than run-of-the-mill spitting up.

Contact your baby's doctor if your baby:. Treatment depends on what's causing the problem. Special feeding techniques might be helpful. In other cases, the doctor might prescribe medication to treat reflux. There is a problem with information submitted for this request. Sign up for free, and stay up-to-date on research advancements, health tips and current health topics, like COVID, plus expert advice on managing your health.

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Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. Advertising revenue supports our not-for-profit mission. Any use of this site constitutes your agreement to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy linked below. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting at least two and a half hours between feedings for formula-fed infants and at least two hours for breastfed infants.

This is important to allow the stomach to empty before adding more milk to it. If you have a forceful let-down reflex, your milk may be flowing too fast for your baby. Try to nurse in a reclined position so that your baby is taking in the milk against gravity.

You can also pump or express some milk from your breasts before beginning a feeding to help slow down the flow. Try different breastfeeding positions to see if some are more comfortable than others for your baby. And after a feeding, try to keep your baby's head upright and elevated for at least 30 minutes. When your baby spits up, milk usually comes up with a burp or flows gently out of their mouth.

Even if your baby spits up after every feeding, it is not usually a problem. Vomiting is different. A baby may vomit on occasion, and that's OK. It could be a sign of illness, infection, or something more serious. Other signs that it is time to call your baby's doctor includes concerns that your baby:. Get it free when you sign up for our newsletter. Diagnosis and treatment of gastroesophageal reflux in infants and children.

Am Fam Physician. Gastroesophageal reflux in children: an updated review. Drugs Context. Published Jun