diff --git a/lib/sinon.js b/lib/sinon.js
index 8f75137ad..95679cee5 100644
--- a/lib/sinon.js
+++ b/lib/sinon.js
@@ -363,7 +363,10 @@ var sinon = (function (formatio) {
     }
 
     if (formatio) {
-        var formatter = formatio.configure({ quoteStrings: false });
+        var formatter = formatio.configure({
+                quoteStrings: false,
+                limitChildrenCount: 250
+            });
         sinon.format = function () {
             return formatter.ascii.apply(formatter, arguments);
         };
diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index d209e4fc5..e964bb4d7 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
     "prepublish": "./build"
   },
   "dependencies": {
-    "formatio": "~1.0",
+    "formatio": "~1.1.1",
     "util": ">=0.10.3 <1"
   },
   "devDependencies": {
diff --git a/test/sinon_test.js b/test/sinon_test.js
index 1cf600ae6..eee67952d 100644
--- a/test/sinon_test.js
+++ b/test/sinon_test.js
@@ -563,6 +563,13 @@ buster.testCase("sinon", {
             assert.equals(sinon.format({ id: 42 }), "{ id: 42 }");
         },
 
+        "// should configure formatio to use maximum 250 entries" : function(){
+            // not sure how we can verify this integration with the current setup
+            // where sinon.js calls formatio as part of it's loading
+            // extracting sinon.format into a separate module would make this a lot
+            // easier
+        },
+
         "formats strings without quotes": function () {
             assert.equals(sinon.format("Hey"), "Hey");
         }