Toddler and infant vomiting (or throwing up) is a common symptom. Most of the time, it is just normal and does not suggest anything serious is wrong with your baby. Very occasionally, infant vomiting will indicate a serious disorder.

This section will help you to understand what it means if your baby or toddler is vomiting and help you know what you need to do about it and when to be worried.

All babies will throw up (vomit) a little. We call these spills or possets and these are the most usual cause of infant vomiting. Sometimes, these possets are a little blood-stained - this is usually no cause for alarm.

Milk coming from the stomach, back up the esophagus and out the mouth is also called gastro-esophageal reflux-Read more. It is easy (and normal) for babies to spill because:

• they have relatively weak muscles surrounding the end of the esophagus as it enters the stomach (the gastro-esophageal junction), so it doesn't "close" so well and contents from the stomach can come back into the esophagus easily - so babies vomit.
• they have a liquid diet - milk. It would be much harder for steak to come back into the esophagus even with weak muscles at the gastro-esophageal junction.
• they are mostly lying down, and even when they are upright, as babies do not have much tone in their trunk muscles, they are hunched forward putting pressure on the stomach. You and I have gravity working for us to keep our food in our stomach - babies do not.

The most important factor in determining whether infant vomiting is a problem or not is to look at the rest of your baby. You don't have to worry if she is:

• gaining weight
• happy
• developing normally (ie. learning new tricks all the time)
• otherwise well in herself

As your child gets older, it will be easier to figure out what's happening.
For some toddlers, it is easy to vomit, but I don't get too worried if they only do this occasionally (once a day or so), as long as everything else is normal.

The most common reason for a toddler to vomit if she has a fever is gastroenteritis.

If you are still worried about your toddler or infant vomiting, look at the information below and read more about those situations.