What to Eat When You Have Morning Sickness All Day: 54 Ideas
*Updated 1/9/2022
If you’re reading this, then you’re probably feeling super sick and pregnant, in the first trimester. Maybe you feel well enough where you want to attempt to eat, but unsure what may be a good choice, aka – won’t make you get sick, or even foods that fight nausea during pregnancy.
*Disclosure: some links may contain affiliate links. For more information on what this means, visit my disclosure page.
So, you want to know what to eat when you have morning sickness all day long and can barely get any relief from it.
But, you know you need to eat, for you, and the little one you’re growing inside you!
If you are not familiar with this site, I tend to stick to only supporting vegan options to eat. But, when it comes to morning sickness and needing to eat and keep the food down, I decided I wasn’t going to limit the options to only vegan.
It’s hard enough finding something that sounds good to eat; if that something happens to be cheese and crackers (and not vegan cheese), then so be it.
You need to eat, and shouldn’t feel bad about what you’re eating when you have horrible morning sickness and having to fight to keep the food down every time you eat!
Feel free to download or print off the list below for easy access for the best foods for morning sickness! (They’re mostly bland, easy-to-digest foods, along with high protein foods, and more.)
Pin this post for later with the image below, or click above to get the printable list!!
If you want to know more ways to help with morning sickness, or what causes it in the first place; check out This Article on Morning Sickness in Pregnancy and how to deal with it.
Tips for Eating During Morning Sickness: Eat Often!
When you can barely keep your food down in the first trimester, you want to stick with small meals, or even snacks, often.
So, the ideas in the list below may not look like full meals, they’re meant to be manageable to eat at one time. You never want to feel too full when you have morning sickness, since that can make you queasy; then again, you never want to be too hungry either, because that’ll make you sick, as well.
It’s a tough balance, and will require you to listen to your body to know when to stop, or start eating again!
Some things you end up eating at this point in your pregnancy may be food you ate as a child; these foods will feel comforting and very familiar to you, even if they aren’t the healthiest.
Snacks for Morning Sickness:
- Cheese and crackers
- Crackers (by themselves)
- Graham Crackers
- Banana
- Pretzels
- Plain Chips- Like Lays Originals, or Ruffles (not the healthiest thing in the world, but then again, you need to eat something)
- Pita Chips
- Salsa and Tortilla Chips
- Baked potato (feel free to use the microwave)
- French Fries or Potato Wedges
- Thinly Sliced and Baked Potatoes with olive oil, salt, and garlic
- Corn
- Cold Apple Sauce
- Cranberry Sauce
- Watermelon
- Yogurt (I still ate soy yogurt, but eat whatever you feel most comfortable eating)
- Berries (maybe even in your yogurt)
- Apples with Cinnamon
- Baked Apples
- Apples with peanut butter
- Oranges
- Grapefruit
- Plain Rolls (with butter) or biscuits
- Popsicles
Easy Meals for the First Trimester:
- Plain toast (or add some butter/cinnamon/sugar, jam, or peanut butter)
- Dry Cereal
- Cereal with Milk (any kind of milk, I needed to have milk on my cereal- just drinking something without food in it would make me sick in the morning)
- Bagels with Butter or Cream Cheese
- Waffles
- Crepes
- Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich
- Mac and Cheese
- Couscous (the NearEast boxes aren’t that bad)
- Pasta with Marinara Sauce
- Pizza
- Tortilla Pizza
- English Muffin Pizza
- Bagel Pizza
- Simple Quesadillas (just tortilla and cheese or refried beans)
- Soup (I enjoyed Amy’s Brand soups)
(Citrus or) COLD Drinks:
- Water
- Cranberry Juice (such as cran-apple)
- Water with lemon
- Orange Juice (be careful, this does not feel good coming back up)
- Ginger ale
- Gatorade
- Store bought Smoothies or Green Juices (or make your own if you have the energy)
- Peanut Butter and Chocolate Smoothie
Ginger, Peppermints, & more:
- Crystallized Ginger
- Hard Ginger Candy
- Sour Candy to suck on
- Peppermints (like candy canes)
- Molasses Cookies
- Sorbet
Want to know more about morning sickness, check out this article.
Have other kids you need to care for an make food for while pregnant with morning sickness? Be sure to check out this article: 55 Easy Vegan Kid Meals (For When You’re Too Tired to Cook!)
A Few Tips When it Comes to Eating with Morning Sickness
Eating anything when you have morning sickness can be a challenge. You know you have to eat and keep hydrated. But, you also have to balance so many things to help ensure the food, and drinks, actually stay down.
You have to balance how much, how often, what, and when you eat.
For the ‘what’, the lists above can be your best friend and help you find something that sounds good.
For how much, it can get a little tricky; if you eat too much, you may get sick, too little and you’ll be starving or getting sick in about a half hour. Small meals, or snacks are usually best. Don’t eat until you are 100% full, but make sure you eat enough so you won’t be hungry 5 minutes later.
For how often, this will be different for everyone. But, with morning sickness and all day nausea there’s usually a time window you need to eat in, or you’ll get sick. For me, I had to eat every hour and a half to two hours or I’d get sick. That’s why, in this post, I suggest you eat as often as a baby.
If you have to eat as often as I do, then I hope the suggestions above will help you through this unpleasant time in your pregnancy. Just know, YOU are NOT alone in this, and it’ll all be worth it when your baby is born!
I’m 7 weeks and popcorn has saved my life. I’ve been adding a sprinkle of nutritional yeast to it (which has B vitamins and Folic acid) and it’s helping me to not be sick all day like I was before.
I’m so glad you’ve found something that works for you! And that’s awesome you can add nutritional yeast to it, so beneficial during pregnancy 🙂
It’s so validating to see the foods I can stomach on these lists… I’m usually a pretty healthy/balanced diet. But the past 72 hours especially has been brutal and today alone I’ve surrendered to microwavable mac and cheese and turkey hot dogs haha
I’m only 5 weeks almost 6 and I’ve never been this sick sooo early or in general with any of my pregnancies. Literally just forced myself to make the family dinner and ran to the bathroom 🥲 at least they can eat what I made lol. Just reading that “just eat what you can” gives me relief. I feel so bad I’m not eating the best right now.
This is my first pregnancy and I’m at such a loss with this morning sickness! I’m only 7 weeks along and I haven’t been able to keep anything down but watermelon! Just the smell of cooking food turns my stomach, or even opening the fridge sends me to the bathroom. I sure hope this gets better soon! I’ll be trying a few items on this list that actually sounded appealing! I’m hopeful!
The morning sickness will pass, hopefully by the time you get to the second trimester (that’s when it ended for me when I was pregnant with each of my 3 kids), and in the meantime I hope the ideas in the list help!
Thank you for this list. I’m 8 weeks along and have nausea all day. I also have to eat every hour and a half or I get really sick. Finding that anything with tomato/tomato sauce makes things worse. Orange juice definitely hurts on the way back! My biggest struggle is staying hydrated because water with or without anything in it just turns my stomach. Wishing everyone a healthy pregnancy!
Thank you for this list, I’m desperate to find things that I can eat regularly without getting that sickening feeling in my stomach.
I am 7 weeks and I have morning sickness all day no matter what i try to eat i can’t keep it down . Any idea what i can try ?
I’m so sorry! Morning sickness is the worst; if you’ve tried eating what’s suggested in the list above and nothing works for you, I also wrote about other ways to deal with morning sickness here: https://stresslessbehealthy.com/morning-sickness-in-pregnancy-relief/
(Basically, let yourself rest when you need it, be active when you can, eat small amounts of what you can tolerate often, and stay hydrated.)
Just know that the morning sickness won’t last forever and that it’s a good sign that baby is developing!
If nothing at all seems to work, I’d recommend to talk to your OBGYN about it. Different things work for different mamas to be and even different pregnancies.
All the food options were great! But in my personal experience tomatoes and anything acidic made me alot sicker so maybe not salsa and marinara sauce!
I’m glad you like the suggestions! I’m sorry you had a bad experience with tomatoes and the like. It’s so hard to find something to eat with morning sickness, and it doesn’t help that what can be tolerated during one pregnancy may not even be tolerated with the next and vice versa. I hope you don’t have to suffer with morning sickness for too much longer!
My last pregnancy the only thing I could eat had tomatoes in it lol! It’s all I would crave! Raviolis and chips and salsa were my favorites but this pregnancy the only thing I’ve been able to hold down in 3 days is French fries and I can’t cook them somebody has to prepare them for me bc if I smell it too long I’ll get sick and can’t eat them! I’m only 8 weeks and have all day and all night nausea so I still have a LONG WAYS TO GO!!!
Absolutely! Same here… ironically the FIRST DAY I really experienced morning sickness I’d just eaten a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup… to say I was sick is an understatement.
Love this really helpful !!
I’m soo glad you found this helpful!