What would you consider an "ideal" age to start vaccinating?

[YayJennie]

I was never vaccinated, and never expected to vaccinate my kids, but my husband wants to vaccinate.  We've had many lengthy discussions, and I feel that we need to come to a compromise on the vaccinating issue.  So we have not vaccinated our kids at all yet (we have a 21 month old and a 7 week old), but now we're planning on doing selective vaccinations that we can both agree on and on a schedule that we work out with our ped (we have an amazingly awesome holistic doctor who will let us make our own schedule and do whatever ones we choose).

So, what age would you want to start your child's vaccinations?  Why?  We've already agreed we'll wait until at least age 2 for both of them, but we're going into my son's 2 year WBV in March to discuss exactly when and which vaccines we'll start.  Any advice?

[carriebft]

are you doing all vaccines or just some? that really would determine the schedule for me. Let me know which you want to do and I will weigh in on what I would do as far as order and schedule go :)

[fitmommy]

Well if u dont vax until age 2 remember that some of these diseases,such as HIB,PC occur mainly during infancy.Others such as pertussis and rotavirus are serious only during the first year or two of life.So id really see no point in vaxing for most of the diseases ur past the window when they are most serious.They are much less common and better tolerated.

[ASusan]

Ideally, I would start after a child is able to verbally articulate what s/he is experiencing his her/his body. For us, that would be around 3; although DS could talk before three, he never told us or reported on his own internal state. But, just last week, he woke up and said his leg(s) hurt and his knee(s) hurt. He could tell me that it hurt inside his leg, and that it hurt when he was still, not only when he moved it. We immediately thought of the medication we had started the night before, and went to see if the typical (or atypical!) side effects included limb or joint pain or swelling.

Not just verbal, but able to have a discussion with you about what they are experiencing in their body.

[ma2two]

I think three years old is way too young to be able to fully articulate vaccine reactions. I'm thinking 8 years old would be the absolute minimum age.

[carriebft]

I think more about the diseases themselves and what we want protection from. Do i want protection from pneumococcal, which is pretty dangerous on the age of 5 and pretty widespread as far as VPDs go? (you are more likely to catch these strains than to get Hib, for example). Do I want protection against pertussis or to lessen the severity if we do get it, then I'd get DTaP. Once I had in my head which diseases we want protection from then a schedule flows pretty easily from that.

[jessjgh1]

Carrie or others- what ages are highest risk for HIB??    I was thinking after 2 or 3  i s not that common?

I would have a lot more confidence in the vaccine program if the recommended schedule flowed from that information. 

Hep B at birth was the first eye opener for me.  I just wanted to ask our pedi why/if it was really necessary at birth.  Might have been able to learn more, except instead of offering information about it my pediatricain used the scare tactic that I should have it done at the hospital just in chase my son had a severe reaction to it because the hospital would be a better place than his office.

Sorry, I keep hitting the touchpad and deleting my text, so I had to retype what I could and wish I had more time

Jessica

[MCatLvrMom2A&X]

For me I am taking into account how well my kids communicate with me. Ds is 6 now and I am thinking of doing some vax but havnt committed yet because he can still be a bit hard to understand.

Something else I am keeping in mind is that the older they are when you start vaxing the less vax they will need to be caught up. Like DTaP and Polio both of those remove one shot from the series if you wait until 4yo. So instead of 5 DTaP you only need 4 and instead of 4 doses of Polio you only need 3.

You can find the above information here http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2011/11_catchup-schedule-pr.pdf

[caitryn]

I think it depends entirely on your family, each individual child, and what you want to vaccinate against.  For instance, if you are worried about rotovirus, there is a very limited time frame in which you can even get the vaccine, and the maximum start time, (for two or three doses) is 12 weeks of age.  I personally believe that birth is the wrong time to give any vaccine, but considering Hep B can be easily transferred in a hospital, I imagine that is why they want to do it right after the child is born.  (At least, I believe that's their justification for it.)  

My family has personally found the polio vaccine to be the safest of the required ones, so I had no problem giving that to my son mostly on schedule.  We did, however, move to another state when DS was 6 months old, and it took until he was close to 2 years old for us to find a good pediatrician we could trust.  We finished out the polio vaccine and worked with the pediatrician to develop another alternative schedule for him.  My sister and I both had severe, life-threatening reactions to the old pertussis vaccine, so my husband and I had already agreed to delay and/or avoid certain vaccines based on my medical history.  Given how things have worked with DS, I am thinking that a couple of vaccines while younger may be alright, but I prefer to wait until they are closer to 2 years old.

Personally, I would try to stick with only one vaccine at a time, at least 30 days apart.  That will definitely give you time to judge whether or not your children are going to have a reaction and, if they do have one, you'll know exactly which vaccine caused it.

[Disco Infiltrator]

I can only tell you what we did. We stopped vaxing DS around 18 months and will start up again at 4 y/o. He's had all the vaccines except the MMR and varicella. We delayed the MMR until after 3 because his immune system would more intact at that point and lessen the possibility of reaction. We then pushed it out until later because DW got pregnant and there were shedding issues, the same with varicella.

With DD we did DTAP on schedule, then started HIB and pneumococcal later because you can reduce the number of injections if you delay. We'll all (minus me) get varicella soon (DW has zero immunity to chicken pox and it's serious for adults to contract it) and prob delay MMR for DD until after three.

I think a good approach is to consider what diseases you're concerned about contracting. Pertussis is a threat, polio is not unless you're travelling outside the country, etc....

[Jugs]

I hindsight, I would have to say that in some ways it is ideal to start at 2 months. With my oldest child we started with the recommended schedule, but stopped vaxing at 12 months, and resumed at 6 years old. My middle child we started at age 3. My newbie we started a delayed schedule at 2 months with the vaxes I feel are most important for an infant. Yes, my older two can express what they are feeling, but the shots have been harder on them; they'll feel sore and cranky all day, whereas my little one cries for a few minutes and forgets all about it once he has a boob in his mouth, lol.