Are you vaccinating?

[SoonToBe]

I know about the vaccination forum, but I was curious what my DDC peeps were doing?

I am leaning towards no vax, but am most concerned with pertussis.  We haven't seen the ped yet, but he said he thinks HIB, Pc, and DTaP are the most important and would likely pressure us to get those, but he is less concerned with the others. 

[Italiamom]

Nope, no vaxing for a while for us.

[egmaranian]

I only do dtap, pc, hib, and rotavirus starting at 2mo. I also space them out so he never gets more than two at a time and there's a month between vax rounds. That's all DS1 has had so far at 27mo and I'll reevaluate what else to give him when he starts school.

I know that's more than a lot of mamas on here think is needed, but it's what DH and I feel comfortable with after all the research I've done.

[jennyfah]

Nope.  

I encourage you to read up on all the diseases and all the vaccines.  I liked this book.  It's not an anti-vax book; Dr. Cave just lays out that history of each disease, the history of each vaccination, and then offers an alternative vaccine schedule at the end.  It's a nice format because each chapter covers a different disease/vaccination, so you don't have to read the whole book to learn about a particular vax.

[cat13]

DH and I haven't agreed yet, but River has his 1month visit next week, so we really need to make some decisions. We definitely skipped hep b, andcI'm leaning towards a very selective few. DH wants to do the complete schedule, but I told him he doesn't get to have a voteuntil he does a little research. At least we both agree on a more delayed schedule.

[copper.kettle]

nak

i do hib, dtap, and pc. 

[SouthernStormy]

We're still undecided. I would prefer No vax. DH isn't quite on board with that yet, he's got to research it some. If we don't do no vax, we'll definitely be doing delayed/selective vax.

[Baby_Cakes]

Selectively.  At around 4 months I start with dtap.  I only do one injection at a time, one vaccine at a time, or if I do 2 at once, only one will contain mercury.  Dr Sears The Vaccine Book has a great alternate/selective schedule that you can follow, and LOTS of info about how the vaccines are made/what they are for.

Ultimately I think your ped is on the ball with those few he is stressing.  If he's ok with you delaying or not doing the others, that's pretty cool.  We do those.  I think the only ones we don't do are the Heps (at least not yet, DD is almost 3), rotavirus (b/c she's bf'ed and not in daycare) and the flu.  I'm still undecided about the varicella vax...

FWIW, I did a very slow delayed selective schedule with DD, and she's completely "caught up" already.  It didn't take long to get her all the shots she "needs" (I know that's up for debate) for public school.  It's totally doable and worth it IMO to break things up and know exactly which vaccines you are choosing for your child and deciding when they receive them.

[cat13]

Originally Posted by Baby_Cakes 

Selectively.  At around 4 months I start with dtap.  I only do one injection at a time, one vaccine at a time, or if I do 2 at once, only one will contain mercury.  Dr Sears The Vaccine Book has a great alternate/selective schedule that you can follow, and LOTS of info about how the vaccines are made/what they are for.

Ultimately I think your ped is on the ball with those few he is stressing.  If he's ok with you delaying or not doing the others, that's pretty cool.  We do those.  I think the only ones we don't do are the Heps (at least not yet, DD is almost 3), rotavirus (b/c she's bf'ed and not in daycare) and the flu.  I'm still undecided about the varicella vax...

FWIW, I did a very slow delayed selective schedule with DD, and she's completely "caught up" already.  It didn't take long to get her all the shots she "needs" (I know that's up for debate) for public school.  It's totally doable and worth it IMO to break things up and know exactly which vaccines you are choosing for your child and deciding when they receive them.

Carrie, I know with doing a delayed schedule, you end up going to more doctor visits overall. How did your ped office handle this? Did they give you a hassle? Also, I know this might be too personal and might differ by insurance, but do you have to pay all out of pocket for these extra visits since they aren't the usual well-baby visits?

[nald1]

Originally Posted by Italiamom 

Nope, no vaxing for a while for us.

did you with DS? We havent done any with DD- she's 4- but the ? is on the table again.  I get too nervous about the side effects- then there are the horror stories about "what if"  your kid catches some awful disease.  I get so confused!

[veggiemomto2]

I do not know what to do. I am terrified of pertussis. We did not vax DS, but pertussis is such a big deal now. The thing is - the dtap vax scares me as well! It is pretty much the worst one with the worst reactions. And my fear isn't based on things like ads and commercials, it's from reading books and research. I just am so torn and do not know what to do. I have complete peace about indefinitely delaying every other vax and not getting some like HEP B and varicella, polio.

[jillybeans]

We were completely non-vaxing until dd2 got ashtma. We now vax for dtap starting at age 2 to 2.5 (they only need 4 of the 5 doses at that age) because of the pertussis risk. That's all we do.

[copper.kettle]

Tina, my ped office will make me a "nurse visit" if it's just for a vax.  It takes 5 min, and there's no copay because it's not a real dr visit.  They don't usually give a hassle, they're just happy the kid is getting the shots, in my experience.

[Beckily]

We are. We didn't do the Hep B at birth, but he'll end up getting it - my mother almost died of it. He might not get all of them - I've never seen the point of chicken pox, for example - but we'll work it out :)

[earth-mama]

With DD we did dTap starting at 4 months and finished all boosters up to current, then we did the MMR when DD was a little over 2 yrs.   I only do one vaccine per visit and if DD is even remotely sick we wait till she is well. I may do a few others as she gets older, but we will see.

I plan on doing the same thing with DS, but will probably start at 6 months instead.  My policy, that I explained to DP, was that we would only do one at a time and if there are any bad reactions then we will not get any more boosters, period.  I could pretty easily move into the no vax camp, so this is our compromise.  I did a ton of research prior to DD's birth and feel good about our choices.

[cat13]

Originally Posted by copper.kettle 

Tina, my ped office will make me a "nurse visit" if it's just for a vax.  It takes 5 min, and there's no copay because it's not a real dr visit.  They don't usually give a hassle, they're just happy the kid is getting the shots, in my experience.

That's good to know. I have our first well baby visit next week, so I'll ask about this. Thanks! 

[Italiamom]

Originally Posted by nald1 

did you with DS? We havent done any with DD- she's 4- but the ? is on the table again.  I get too nervous about the side effects- then there are the horror stories about "what if"  your kid catches some awful disease.  I get so confused!

We started DS on the Dr. Sears schedule originally. So he had DTaP @ 2 months (we skipped Rota, NO thanks to any live virus vaxes in our house), and then we did HiB and PCV @ 4 months. I was wary of vaccines before... The choice to do any at all was one I wasn't entirely comfortable with. When we got the 4 month vaccines, DS reacted scarily. His leg puffed up, and he screamed, more like shrieked, inconsolably for 4 straight hours. Nothing I did could console him, and it was quite frankly absolutely terrifying for both DH and I. And of course, the ped dismissed both the swelling and the "just some crying" as "perfectly normal." We will vaccinate our kids in the future, but at that point we made the decision to wait until they can communicate what's going on with words. I need to know what hurts, and if something doesn't feel right. And I also vowed to wait until I had found a ped who would take an incident like that seriously.

Vaccines are such a personal choice. What is right for one family, or even one child, isn't necessarily right for the next. Sigh.

[Beckily]

Originally Posted by Italiamom 


Vaccines are such a personal choice. What is right for one family, or even one child, isn't necessarily right for the next. Sigh.

Yes! And it's very hard to find good information! Gives me fits :P

I just want to do the best thing and usually the best thing isn't so hard to figure out :P

[Peony]

Nope, we don't do any. I gave my first only DTaP at 2 months, I was going to pick and choose which vaxs we were going to do, that all went out the window with a vax reaction. She had the horrid scream that they do with swelling of the brain. Screamed the rest of that day which wasn't usual for her, she cried all the time anyway, but this was different, and then slept. I could barely get her to wake up to nurse for the next 2 days, that child never slept even as a baby and then was just off. Today she has multiple disorders, maybe she would of developed all of them anyway but I firmly believe that for her, the vaxing did not help. I found out later that my BIL suffered a vax reaction as a child and developed his tics because of it so there is a family history of vax reactions.

I am completely at peace with my decision. We did experience pertussis in a newborn with my second child and as awful as that was, it didn't change my mind. We've been exposed to Hib, had H1N1 back when it first came out and was a big deal, 2 of my 4 kids have had CP, all but this current baby have had rotavirus, we get true influenza every other year it seems, and I'm ok with it. Giving vaxs to my kids seem riskier IMO. 

[copper.kettle]

Becky, it really is hard to find good info.  It's all either: get all the vaxes or you're a horrible parent and your child will DIE!!  or: don't ever get a single vax, they are horrible and terrible things will happen to your child!!

It's very hard to find any balanced info.  I've found that I just have to pick my worry.  Will I worry more at night about risks wrt vaccinations?  or will I worry more about exposure to the diseases?  That's why we picked the ones we did.  I vax against the junk I feel there is a real risk of exposure, but hold off on the others.  It's such a personal choice.