Why did my baby spit up hours after a feed?

Two hours after a feed

She was asleep and spat up a small amount. Our first thought was that two hours was too long — surely it should have gone somewhere by then.

It hadn't. Milk sits around for a while, and small spit-ups turning up well after a feed is ordinary.

We had something to compare it to

This is what made it manageable rather than frightening, and it's the most useful thing we learned that month.

During one period, Ari had proper projectile vomiting while drinking Alfaré, a hypoallergenic formula. The vomiting stopped after her milk was changed. That timing was our experience; it does not prove that the formula caused it. What it did give us was a clear picture of forceful vomiting, and this later episode was nothing like that. It was a dribble.

The word that changes the answer isn't how much. It's force. Milk that shoots out rather than falls out is a different thing, particularly if it keeps happening.

We watched the weight, not the muslins

Her weight was moving in the right direction over the next few days. That reassured us more than anything else, because it meant that whatever was landing on the muslin, enough was staying in.

A spit-up always looks like more than it is. Tip a tablespoon of milk onto a cloth some time and see how far it travels — that's usually what you're actually looking at.

Ari was gaining steadily and behaving normally, which reassured us far more than the amount of laundry she was creating.

What would have changed our minds

Green or yellow-green, or anything with blood in it. Forceful vomiting coming back. Her not gaining, or losing. Real distress with feeds, or refusing them. A swollen or firm tummy.