Hi K.,
I'm a medical student in the Philadelphia area, and just recently learned about vaccines (as in just yesterday) so I'm up on the information that you are asking about.
First off, here is a link to the recommended vaccination schedule for newborn to 6 years - it's from the CDC, and you can print out the form so you and your husband can look at it on paper and get a feel for what types and the schedule of vaccines your kids need (or are at least recommended). It's written for the doc at the bottom, so maybe overwhelming, but the important information for you and the schedule is at the top.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/chil...
if you look at the range of recommended ages (yellow) you will see that you can most certainly spread out the schedule over many months, and that most of them begin after 12 months. if there is something important to know about scheduling, it is listed below the chart.
so, why vaccine?
there are many reasons to vaccinate your child - and not all of them have to do with protecting your kid for a terrible illness. For instance, Rubella virus (MMR) is a very harmless virus that will give your kid mini-measles for something like 3 days and then will go away and your kid will be immune for life. So why vaccinate? Well, it's for a very important reason - it will cause immediate abortion in a pregnant woman and possible congenital defects in a child that survives the pregnancy if she contracts the virus. Your kid will carry the virus for 6 weeks even though he only shows signs for 3 days! So you can imagine the point of this is to protect the pregnant women, and the unborn child.
Of course, it is quite possible to naturally 'vaccinate' your child if you expose him to the virus, however you will basically have to keep him under quarrantine for 6 weeks to keep him from spreading the virus to those pregnant women! Of course, if the women were previously vaccinated, they should normally be just fine - but 'what if?" is the big question here. Suppose your daughter was never vaccinated, then becomes pregnant, then gets exposed, and the baby survives - born with congential problems (major ones, too, like severe mental retardation)... it's a scary picture. I'm pregnant and am going through worst case scenarios while learning this, and all i can think about is 'please let my titers be high!' when i get my blood work done next week! :) (side note- the rubella virus vaccine i think was the one that someone somewhere linked to autism - which is just not a fact. the mercury that was in the vaccine was removed some time ago, and it was never in the vaccine in europe to begin with - and rates for autism have still continued to rise in both the US and Europe, so the link is disproven - just fyi)
Anyway, most of the vaccines are protective for your kids, for instance the pneumococcus - normally causes you and me to get pneumonia... can be life threatening, but able to be controlled in ideal conditions. but in the child is one of the leading causes of fatal meningitis.
hepatitis B is one of those you could probably skip for now - i mean, you and I can get it now. it would be surprising that your child would be around people who are not immunized, actually... but again it is one of those body fluid transmitted viruses that could - worst case scenario - cause death, but typically won't. you hear about it mostly as a STD . if i were to skip anything, it would be that, however that's me, an it would be something he'd be protected from for life, so why not. it isn't harmful. - i am not trying to convince you of anything here, just giving you the info you might not be aware of.
HIB (haemophilus influenzae (not 'the flu') and poliovirus are also leading causes of meningitis in the newborn, and younger kids/adults... also polio you remember the horror stories i'm sure.
the influenza ('the flu') of course, you know about what the flu does, especially to kids and elderly - there are several strains of the flu virus, and it changes often, and they only make one type of vaccine each year - this does not really cause a debilitating disease, however could cause death. personally i don't see this as ultimately necessary. it's recommended, but 1/6 chance of getting the strain right seems a little much. of course when it's bad, it's bad... so... ???
anyway, i won't bore you with the rest of them specifically - basically most of them CAN (but not always) cause meningitis or encephalitis so = bad, life threatening. either that or terrible coughing spells that can close up the airway and worst case will cause airway closing.
i wanted to make two points as to why you give the vaccines when they do - as in, why 7 at age 12-15 mos. so your child is born with immunity from you from when it was in the womb. and you also give it some if you breastfeed. it takes about a year for the baby's own immune system to kick in. we give most vaccines in order to expose the kid to the thing it will attack if the virus or bacteria enters the kid's system in the future. it's called 'memory' and we all develop it once exposed to whatever it is, but if this is the first time we're seeing the bug, then the illness will last much much longer/worse than it would if we were 'immune' to it. perhaps you know this - and i apologise if this is old hat for you. anyway, we give the vaccines at 1 year-ish because if we gave them earlier they just straight up would not work. you need the immune system to be in place in order to be effective.
anyway, you are welcome to contact me further about this if you like, but my guess is you'd prefer to hear more from other women who are in your same situation. please be cautious about learning from people who have 'heard' from other people, and so on - my suggestion is to consult a naturopath or midwife - someone involved in alternative/complimentary health care, and see what they have to say about it. i'm sure there are plenty of alternative measures you could take, most of which would be exposing your child under controlled settings. it would mean more work for you, but when it comes to your child's health, convenience is secondary - right? :)
sounds like your doctor is not the best for you, at any rate. you should most definitely have someone who is compassionate and listens to you needs/wants, and at best tries to explain the necessity of whatever vaccines your children might need at that time. this sounds excessive and too early. yes, your child might die. you might also get hit by a bus. whatever. if you are planning to get your son vaccinated by age 1, then you're right on track, in my opinion.
good luck to you - let me know if you would like more information or if i can offer some more sources for you to investigate.
C.