Two Month Vaccines...

Poor Dylan had some vaccines today:( If you look closely at this picture you can see the two band-aids on his upper thighs that mark the offending injection sites. He was a trooper. He cried during each shot (the nurse who administered them was kind and let him recover in between) and nearly broke my heart. However, he recovered well and spent much of the next 24 hours sleeping. He did spike his first fever (100.6 F) which was quickly remedied with some Tylenol drops.

Some of you may know Tim and I were concerned about the vaccine issue for various reasons (feel free to ask us about them). After some research we decided to stray slightly from the standard schedule and to spread out the shots a bit. Dylan will be getting 2 vaccines every month (instead of getting 3-5 vaccines every other month). We declined the Rotavirus since it is not mandatory and we are delaying Hep B since, well, it's just not necessary in newborns. He will be getting everything else on the recommended list, just spread out a bit. We are also avoiding combo shots like the Pediarix, giving each vaccine individually whenever possible. We feel these precautions will allow Dylan's little body to better process both the vaccine as well as the additives in each shot. It also allows us to better pinpoint the problematic vaccine in case he has a reaction to one of them. Our pediatrician has been very flexible and willing to work with us on this.

A book we found very, very helpful in working out our schedule is The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Robert Sears (http://www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/). I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about pediatric vaccines. I found it to be very unbiased (not the hippy-dippy, anti-establishment viewpoint many vaccine books are often pegged as presenting) and informative, presenting thorough, easy to understand information about each of the recommended vaccines. I was shocked to find out how little research is actually required before marketing and administering each of these vaccines.

Anyway, that is probably more than you ever wanted to know about our feelings on vaccines. We will return to our lighter, fun updates in the next post:)