This may be the grossest topic I’ve ever written about, but a must read if you have a child since it’s inevitable you will have to clean up their vomit a few times before they even get to their 3rd birthday. Like most incidents with your children, they only happen at the worse time and place. While your child is upset and freaking out (and you are too on the inside), you are now consumed with wondering “How am I going to clean up the mess?…and fast!”

Most responses you’ll find online for this will mention baking soda and vinegar. However, I’ve found dried up baking soda to be very difficult to clean up, and vinegar only adds to the bad smell. You don’t want to mask the smell. You want to remove what’s causing it and sanitize what can potentially make another person in your household sick. So here’s what you need in your vomit preparedness kit:

For your home:

For the car if your child tends to get car sick, or if you are going on a road trip.

Once you have everything for your kit, line the waste basket with the plastic grocery bags. Place everything you need inside and leave the kit in your child’s closet or bring with you in the car.

In the unfortunate event of someone getting sick–grab your kit and get to work.

1. Assure your child everything is going to be OK.

2. Empty the contents of your kit leaving just the plastic bags.

3. Put on your gloves

4. Carefully change your child’s clothing and place the soiled clothing in the first layer of plastic bags

5. Use the baby wipes to clean your child before putting on the clean clothes.

6. Make sure your child is OK or tend to any medical care needed before continuing with the clean up.

7. Remove any other soiled items and place them in the plastic bag. Set aside the bag(s). Replace with clean sheets if they got dirty.

8. (If this is on upholstered furniture or car seat or carpet, go to step 9) On hard surfaces and floors, use a few layers of paper towel to wipe up the mess. Don’t try to wipe it all the way clean, just get the majority of the vomit off the surface.

9. Use as many disinfecting wipes as necessary to clean up the rest of the mess. Don’t use too much pressure and don’t rub. Just keep using clean wipes so you’re not spreading it around. This really helps to reduce the odor and sanitizes the area. Move quickly, but make sure you get in all the crevices.

10. Once you finish wiping. Toss the gloves along with the dirty wipes and tie up your bag of trash.

11. If you are at home, take your bag of soiled clothing and sheets to the kitchen. Put on the other set of gloves. Remove the soiled items from the bag and rinse in the sink. Run the washer right away to avoid any stains setting in. If this happened in the middle of the night, you are better off with wrinkled clothes left in the washer and dry them in the morning than waiting a few hours to wash them.

12. If you are not at home, double bag the soiled items and wash them as soon as you can.

13. Wipe down door knobs, light switches, and faucets, with another disinfecting wipe. Then wash your hands thoroughly and/or sanitize.

I hope you won’t need to use this tip too often, but at least you’ll be prepared for it.