3 year old has Diareaha

Is he overall healthy?

Is he playing somewhat or only laying around?

Is he crying a lot? Or does he seem ok in between going poop and vomiting?

Is he vaccinated? Did he have a vaccine recently?

When my grandson was 3 he had a rotavirus and was sick for about 3 days. Same symptoms you described. But I was not worried about him because overall he seemed to be doing fine. And he was a pretty healthy child already. He even said he was ok, although he did not like vomiting and his belly was getting pretty sore and so was his anus.

He ate almost nothing for 3 days (some soup and crackers) and drank just once in a while.

But after about 3 days he was perfectly alright. I figure he built antibodies to the rotavirus and wouldn't get it again ever.

Hope your son feels better soon.

Don't worry, it's going around in my area. Nasty, nasty stomach virus. My 3 year old ran a nasty temp, didn't eat or drink for 14 hours and vomited/diarrhea at least once an hour for a whole day. Nothing the doctor can do for this kind of thing so save yourself the time and aggravation of going! The only thing they can do is start an IV for hydration. Which is not a nice experience if you can avoid it.

Some tips:
-small sips frequently, even if it is 1 tsp. every 15 minutes. keeping up with this is the single most important thing to keep kid out of hospital and IV therapy.
-need to replenish electrolytes, not just water, but sugar and salt too
-it's ok if they throw it right back up, something will probably go through, but sometimes I will give their belly a rest and give them nothing for a few hours
-my kids like to suck on lollipops for dry mouth, popsicles, ice cubes/chips, slurpees from the convenience store. This is the time I don't worry about sugar/nutrition, I just give them whatever they think they want.
-lots of baths, I jump in with them and let them lay on me and relax
-lots of distractions: tv, music, books
-recognize the signs/symptoms of dehydration. If all the above fails and they become severely dehydrated, they will need an IV
-try homeopathy, massage, aromatherapy, etc.

Good luck. Basically, we do the above and try to live through it. We have all been sick the past few days and it has not been pretty. I spent all day in bed saturday with kids running in and out and crashing with me as they too became ill. Not fun at all! Still not feeling 100% today.