not sure where i should post this?

i know we get 2 months off of vaccines now until their 1 year appt. i have a lot of anxiety regarding the mmr/pox vaccines and was wondering what your thoughts were and what you were planning on doing.
i know i have a couple of months but i feel like i need to make a decision!

 

I think you are going to get a variety of different answers here but personally I think you have to go with your gut and what you feel comfortable with. I would say you should do some thorough research and decide from there.
Personally my twins are not following the regular vaccination schedule here but they will eventually get most of the important vaccinations. We are holding off the one year for a while with approval of their pedi. I never even thought twice about vaccinations with my first son but the twins are a totally different story because of their health and well being. Best of luck

 

We too are doing a selective/delayed schedule.

This book helped me a lot:
http://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Book-Decision-Parenting-Library/dp/0316017507/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268547242&sr=8-1

Dr. Sear's is pro-vaccine. But he provides great information about each vaccine, how it works, what it's made of, any past or present concerns with the vaccine, etc. He also provides a sample delayed or selective schedule for those parents who decide to not follow the AAP schedule.

 

I second this book. It's very easy to read and doesn't make a decision for you either way. DH & I sat down with a notebook and this book and read the chapter then discussed our opinons on each vaccine. We both had 1 or 2 that we would have done individually but nothing we were both 100% in favor of. Jotting down quick notes on each vaccine and our reasoning behind it was helpful when we went in at 2 mos.

Good luck!

 

Another recommendation for Dr. Sears here. We vaxed on schedule and fortunately have had no problems with vaccines. I say do what feels right for your family, read up on them and consult with your pedi with any concerns you might have. Good luck!

 

Do what you feel comfortable with. We vaxed on schedule, it seems the older mine get the easier the vaccines go. They cried when the needle stuck them, but then it was over with no after effects.

 

Another Dr. Sears fan here. Dr. Sears recommends splitting up the MMR. However, we've decided to wait until they start school until they get the MMR. We are not going to give the chicken pox vaccine, since it's a fairly new vaccine. If they don't get chicken pox by the time they are teenagers we will likely vaccinate them then.

 

yes, another vote for the Vaccine Book by Dr. Sears. he also has a blog where you can get some updated info. We basically vaccinated on schedule but we just spread out the shots for 2 months instead of doing 4+ at once. As for the MMR since it isn't available separately we did decide to get it done in a month that was by itself. I thought that was going to be 15 months but something else was due at 15 months... so I think we went in at 16 months.

anyway, good luck making the decision! for us we have not had any issues with any of the vaccinations, guess I need to look up what's due for us next!

 

The MMR was always done at 15 months for my kids. None of them had any reactions at all to it. The only shot any of my kids had a problem with was DTP, my last dd cried for 3 hours straight. My one consolation was that according to the ped this was due to the 'P' part of the shot...pertussis...and at the time whooping cough was going through our town, so I could at least console myself with the fact that I felt good about getting her innoculated against it.

I feel the same way about MMR though. If there were controversy over kids' reaction to say the Polio vaccine I wouldn't feel bad about ditching it since the likelihood of them encountering Polio here is almost non-existant. But there's a mumps outbreak going on in NY right now, and there have been cases of Measles floating around in the last few years... so since my personal experience shows no problem with this vaccine I'll get my latest one the shot at 15 months the same as his siblings.

I'm in the camp that spreads the vaccines out so they don't get too many at once, but my kids have all their shots by 18 months. My personal feeling is that I think the young kids respond better to the vaccines than adults do, and that it would be very traumatizing to put a 5-7 year old through all those shots....their memory is much better than a 0-2year old.

However there are shots I avoid...the flu shot and the rotovirus vaccine. I just consider them to be unnecessary since my kids don't have other chronic illnesses putting them at risk for these things...and they aren't low weight, so losing a few pounds due to rotovirus isn't going to set them back. Plus I bf and I've never known a bf baby to get rotovirus ever.

But all of this is my opinion for my family. I've got friends who don't do any shots at all, and I understand where they are coming from. Either course of action has it's risks and fears.

 

My boys got their mmr and pox at 15 months. All went well :ibiggrin: !

 

We are moving mmr to 3 years old. My older son had a reaction and our state guidelines do not require it for daycare (some states require it for daycare or preschool so you need to check what your state guidelines are). We are doing the live virus shots solo because they are more likely to cause a reaction. H&J will get all the vaccines they need however not on the express schedule of the pediatrician.

 

my pedi does the mmr and pox at 12 mos i think. everything else has already been given on a schedule similar to dr. sears except they've already received the menengitis vaccine. their polio vaccine was given with roto and dtap.

ty for the book suggestion! i placed it on hold at my library.

 

We moved the MMR from 12 to 15 months and gave it at a time when there were no other vaccines given. We did not separate the vaccine. We had no reaction. But we have also not had any issues from previous vaccines. I would go with your gut and do some reading and talk to your Ped. GL with your decision.

 

as far as other reactions to other vaccines...is fever/redness a 'reaction' that i should be concerned with?

 

I am biased because I am very pro-vaccine. People forget that vaccines are the most successful public health advancement of the 20th century. We are all young enough that we are pretty naive about the risks of preventable diseases because most of them have become pretty rare thanks to vaccines. Ask some older people about the days when they were in fear of contracting polio or if they knew someone who died of measles or if they knew of a child who was deaf or neurodevastated from Hib meningitis...Now do a search and see that there was a measles outbreak in the US in 2008 and that the cases of measles in the last 10 years have been higher than any decade since they started vaccinating. There was also a recent mumps outbreak in NYC and there was a Hib outbreak in Minnesota in 2008 which killed several children. People are very nonchalant about the chicken pox vaccine because many of us had it as children but there are cases of children who get it and end up with liver failure or serious bacterial infection as a result of the chicken pox, which is why there is a vaccine for it. If it were just a pesky virus (like many other viral rashes) they never would have bothered with a vaccine. I disagree with a pp who said it is a new vaccine, as it has been around since 1970 and became part of our routine vaccinations in the US 15 years ago.

So, long story short....I am following the AAP schedule and making sure my children are fully vaccinated. They are most at risk for serious illness when they are smaller so the more protection they can have early on the better.

 

There's actually a measles outbreak here in the Bay Area right now! (Luckily not yet quite where I live). My guys aren't yet 12 months (almost!) but I'll definitely give the MMR vaccine at the scheduled time. I wouldn't want them to be vulnerable for extra months, especially since (though I like the Sears) there really aren't any studies that back up the extended schedule.

 

Ditto, although I didn't used to agree with the varicella vaccine. Now I don't mind. No one in our families have ever had any reaction to any of them, other than redness and swelling at the injection site for a few days for some of them.