Any MA moms who selectively/delayed vax?

[wencit]

Are there any MA mommies who selectively/delayed vax your DC? How do you get around it in terms of preschool enrollment? After 16 loooong months of unemployment/underemployment, it looks like DH is FINALLY going to get a job offer in the Boston area, so I've been frantically trying to find preschools for DS1 since I know registration starts soon.

I've been looking at some of the registration forms online, and they all require children to have received certain vaccinations before entering preschool (one of which is varicella, which I certainly wasn't planning to give my son until he was older). At my son's preschool in CA, we weren't even required to fill out an exemption of any kind. We just photocopied his immunization records with the registration, and that was it. In MA, apparently you also need some kind of lead screening and physician's certificate, too.

If you selectively/delayed vax and live in MA, how do you get around this? The preschool forms I've looked at say it's mandatory that your child's vaccinations be up-to-date before they can enter preschool.

Thanks in advance!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Not in MA but they had changed the vaccine policy at ds2's preschool over the summer. Just a few weeks before school started I got word of that policy change. It meant that I needed to make some decisions because I had been delaying/ being selective. I did opt to have the vaccines done but I still wanted to spread them out by a few weeks. I told them that I would get him the vaccines but for safety I was spreading them out. His preschool was fine with that; all they wanted from me was a plan. I let them know that we would get everything done by Dec. and we did. I felt better because I still got to stagger some and I got to wait on the MMR till the date I was already planning to do it (2yo). So, don't be really discouraged right away because you may find they are willing to work out a plan with you or agree to your alternative plans. You never know.

Beth

[sidmand]

We have delayed vaccinations for my daughter so I only know for daycare...my son's were all done on schedule so there wasn't a question there.

Daycare was fine since we had done all the *important* ones already. I don't know what will happen once she gets to preschool although I would imagine that she'd be pretty caught up by then. I'm hoping not to get the varicella at all and I know that is required for school but I've been told that because of DS's diagnosis I may be able to be exempt from that.

It doesn't help you but I agree with Beth that you may just need to ask them and once they find out you have a definite plan they would be okay.

[daphne]

Following along b/c DD is starting preschool in the fall (i hope!), but is behind in her vax schedule. With DS, he was only missing one vax & I asked the school to wait until Dec for him to get it; luckily, they were fine with waiting. DD, otoh, is missing several vaxes. I'm pretty sure I'm just going to catch her up (except one or 2) by the fall.