If you told me prior to children that I would be puked on on a very high alert Defcon 5 basis, I would have never had kids.
Our son, who is four in two days, has a very easy gag reflex.
From 8 months - 2.5 years of age, he could pretty much barf on command or whenever he got really upset. (Like waking up in the middle of the night to realize - *gasp * he was in bed and so were we in another room…baaaaaarf. ( It was control issue, see.)
After you clean up the umpteenth yack attack, and you see how the stomach acid in barf bleaches the carpet, *you will do anything you can to keep from cleaning that pile up off the floor * and when you know that junior is going to hurl before you can grab the towel/t-shirt/bathroom behind you *you will catch the hurl in your hands * because you are sick of dragging out the rub-scrubber every night. I have caught vomit in my hands so many times, it is a non-event now.
It was to the point that while my son was throwing up in my proffered hands that I would think *hmmmm, what other purpose does this vomit have to my advantage *. Really.
Then I thought of the stain on the carpet downstairs that came from the dog horking up a wad of grass that would choke a cow. It looked like an aerial view of the Grand Canyon and Resolve and the like don’t do squat for carpet stains trust me on this, I think all those ‘carpet cleaners’ are really stain-stickerers. I trotted downstairs plopped the pile of vomit on the unsightly stain, covered it with a wet wash cloth and left it there over night. I mean, it couldn’t actually do any damage. When I came down in the morning, cleaned up the mess ( actually, the dog did most of it…what? This is not your dog.) the stain was nearly gone.
I’ve decided to market this as **Gack in the Can **
Un/fortunately, the Comstoke Lode of Barf out grew this loverly control issue. Our daughter, who does not throw up to control us, throws herself down on the floor like she’s been shot then does an A-1 job of crying like a B-movie actress.
You never know. We’ve got a three year old and have had minimum puke. I felt sick for 18 weeks of pregnancy, but only actually barfed twice. Other than innocent baby spit-up, my son has never puked. (I just jinxed myself–I hope you’re happy).
However, I do hope you’re not weak-stomached on other things. I know someone whose husband gagged over diapers. Not just poopy ones, even those which were merely peed into. That means he NEVER changed a diaper. It caused a lot of tension between the parents, and he never became much of a caregiver. By six months old, the baby would freak out if mom left her with daddy, even if just for a few minutes. Horrible situation. Toughen up that stomach if you can. It’s worth it!
Yesterday morning as I was wiping off the barf my 3 year old boy deposited on my bare chest I thought of this old thread and figured I’d post an update.
Those who said the nurturing feelings would kick in and overwhelm the pukephobia were absolutely right. Vomit stills squicks me out but when my little boy is sick all I care about it making sure he’s going to be OK. Right now mom is still the go to girl for when junior is barfing, but knowing that ol dad can step in if needed is a relief.
I don’t know how she handled it when we were babies, but my mom never got over it. When we were sick she would stand outside the bathroom and shout encouraging things through the door. Otherwise she’d be right there next to us, throwing up herself.
I agree with most others that you’ll probably get used to it.
However, in the event you don’t, there is light at the end of the tunnel. In my experience anyway, our kids want me, not my husband, when they’re feeling sick. My husband has had to deal with vomit only once, and our son was old enough to get to the toilet when it happened (it was a few months ago; he’ll be four in May). Prior to that, every time he was feeling sick to his stomach, he’d fuss until I was holding him, then let loose. I remember sitting in the bathtub one particularly bad night taking deep breaths and trying not to join in the hurl-fest while my son vomited all over the both of us. Then I calmly stripped both of us down and turned on the shower. I could smell barf in my hair for a week after. So, if you’re lucky (and your wife is not), she may be the one dealing with the vast majority of hurlage, not you.
Edited to add that our daughter is pretty young - young enough that she rarely barfs more than a teaspoon and since I’m breastfeeding, she rarely barfs at all. I think she does it more at daycare, where they feed her bottles of expressed milk (the faster they get it, the more likely it is to come up, I think; though depending upon how their innards are built, sometimes even that doesn’t matter).
Before my daughter, vomiting and fecal matter were absolutely revolting. Now, two and half years in, they are annoying. Occasionally I’ll have a gag reflex, but generally speaking, even being covered in shit is doable.
I look back on some incidents and laugh. There was one time when I was changing my daughter and she had a case of the explosive shits. Naturally I’m cleaning up and she let’s a spray fly. I dodge out of the way like Neo dodging an agents bullets and the spray hit the TV.
My first instinct was to laugh and be impressed that my rotund self still had some agility.
It wasn’t until I was scrubbing it out of the carpet (which came after cleaning the TV) that I thought about how disgusting it was…
Thanks for the update, it’s always nice to know how these things turn out!! Sorry your boy feels bad, hope he gets well soon.
I have a 15 month old daughter and I must admit that the baby puke was no big deal, but I’m a little worried about toddler and pre-teen puke. So far so good, though. ::keeping fingers crossed::
Luckily, by the time my son was about three and a half, he began to make it to the toilet without getting it all over. It takes a couple of tries, though. Just think: two stomach bugs and another 20 months or so and you’re probably golden. (Until they make like a fountain from both ends, that is. )
The day after last Halloween (2008) they gave his preschool class a bunch of candy during the day during their Halloween party. Not knowing this, I made the stupid mistake of letting him have a hot dog and french fries and one piece of candy for dinner (all these things are typically on the Things Not to Be Brought in the House list).
I guess all the unaccustomed foods really got to him because the next morning, I was awakened to the bedroom door opening slowly, then weird gagging noises. I got up to find out what it was and followed the trail of rancid hotdog barf down the hall to my son. He’d apparently made it all the way down the hall to the family room, where he stopped and got sick on the arm of a chair, then came back to get us, then finally went into the bathroom, but forgot to turn on the light in his bid to get to the toilet. So I walked right by him initially, then followed the trail back. Thinking about it makes me laugh. I hate hotdogs now.
My kid once threw up into a huge box of Legos. We had to dump all the Legos into the bath tub to soak.
I thought we were past the worst of it, but my whole family had a vicious stomach virus not long ago, and we had to have another talk with the 9-yr-old about the hierarchy of vomiting locations. (If you can’t make it to the toilet, then the next best thing is a bowl. If you can’t make it to a bowl, then aim for a tile floor. Or at least aim for a blanket or a towel… anything is better than the couch or the carpet.)
Baby puke is different from people puke. Baby puke is much less bothersome than baby shit. Baby puke is closer to spilled milk than it is to real puke.
All my life, I’ve had a most unfortunate reaction when someone pukes – I laugh like hell. I DO NOT think it’s funny, but I cannot help myself, much as I seriously try. A nervous reaction, perhaps. When my daughter was past the baby puke stage, but was legitimately stomach-sick, I lovingly held her hair back, stroked her neck as she knelt over the toilet, and wished from the bottom of my heart that I could transfer her sickness to me so she would feel better. And yet, I giggled. She was old and wise enough to lean back and say, “Mom, you’re not laughing, are you?” And I smothered my uncontrolled laughter as I assured her, “No, honey.”
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