Two Month Checkup

Today Caleb visited the pediatrician for his two month checkup. He's doing great! His height and weight stats were:

22 1/4 inches long
10 1/2 pounds

Both of these are the 10-20% percentile for a two month old. If you adjust for him being premature and compare him against one month olds, he's at the 50% percentile. He's our happy, chubby baby!

He wasn't too happy though with the shots. He was scheduled for four shots today, according to the AAP's standard immunization schedule. I've been reading What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Children's Vaccinations, which presents a rather pessimistic view of vaccinations. Though the author does stretch the results of some studies to present a dooms-day view of vaccinations, it's a good perspective to weigh against the pro-vaccination view we hear from the medical community.

Though Papa Tigger and I don't want to get caught up in the current herd mentality about vaccinations being dangerous, we recognize that there might be a small grain of truth in the hype. Ultimately, we'd rather be safe than sorry.

We talked to the doctor today about delaying and spacing out the two-month vaccinations. She recommended the AAP schedule, but said she frequently accomodates parents who want to deviate from the schedule. She did strongly urge us to complete all four vaccinations before Caleb goes to daycare (though it's hard for me to imagine him getting polio at daycare).

So our decision was to do two vaccinations (DTaP and Hib) today and do the other two (Polio, Prevnar) in a month before he goes into daycare. He was quite a champ and only cried for a few seconds after being stuck. Unfortunately, this means a few days of soreness, fever and fussiness, which is no fun for any of us:(