Baby and child vaccine schedule in 2026: what's given at each age

Short answer

The childhood vaccine schedule hasn't moved much at the visit level: shots cluster at 2, 4, 6 and 12–15 months, again at 4–6 years, and once more at 11–12 years. What changed in 2026 is who recommends what. Before you assume your child is behind, look at the actual record rather than at memory — a dose given a month late is still a dose, and catch-up rules exist for the rest.

You're not imagining the confusion, and it isn't a sign you've been careless. The US schedule genuinely changed twice in a year, a court put part of it back, and your clinic's handout may now say AAP where it used to say CDC. Parents all over the country are asking the same question this month. Nothing below asks you to decide anything on your own — it's there so you walk into the next appointment knowing what to ask.

Note: this article explains what the published schedules say and is not medical advice. Your child's pediatrician or family doctor decides which vaccines fit your child and when. Call 911 for hives, swelling of the face or throat, wheezing or trouble breathing, a fast heartbeat, limpness or a seizure after a shot. Call the pediatrician right away for a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher in a baby under 3 months, a temperature repeatedly above 104°F (40°C) at any age, or a child who looks very ill, is unusually drowsy or very fussy. (16, 17).

The baby and child vaccine schedule at a glance

This is the schedule as published for ages 0 through 18. CDC's own posted schedule is the version revised July 2, 2025, which the agency restored in April 2026 to comply with a court order (1, 2); the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) publishes its own 2026 schedule, and on the ages below the two agree (7, 10). The next section explains where they don't.

• Birth — Hepatitis B, dose 1 — within 24 hours for a baby over 2,000 g who is medically stable

• Birth to 8 months — RSV antibody (nirsevimab or clesrovimab) in or just before RSV season, depending on whether the mother had the RSV vaccine in pregnancy

• 1–2 months — Hepatitis B, dose 2

• 2 months — DTaP · Hib · PCV (pneumococcal) · IPV (polio) · rotavirus

• 4 months — DTaP · Hib · PCV · IPV · rotavirus

• 6 months — DTaP · PCV · rotavirus (third dose with RotaTeq) · Hib (third dose with some brands) · IPV and hepatitis B dose 3 fall anywhere in 6–18 months

• From 6 months, every year — Flu vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine is also licensed from 6 months

• 12–15 months — MMR · chickenpox (varicella) · Hib booster · PCV, fourth dose

• 12–23 months — Hepatitis A, two doses at least 6 months apart

• 15–18 months — DTaP, fourth dose

• 4–6 years — DTaP, fifth dose · IPV, fourth dose · MMR, second dose · chickenpox, second dose

• 11–12 years — Tdap · HPV (two doses if started before 15; can start at 9) · MenACWY

• 16 years — MenACWY booster. MenB is a separate conversation, not routine

Three practical notes that catch people out. Rotavirus is the one series with a hard clock: it can't be started at 15 weeks 0 days or later, and the last dose has to be in before 8 months 0 days (1). Flu is different from everything else on the list because it repeats every year, and children aged 6 months through 8 years need two doses at least four weeks apart in their first flu season, then one a year after that — the details are in our guide to the flu shot for kids. And the nasal spray flu vaccine starts at age 2, not 6 months.

What happens at the 2-, 4- and 6-month visits?

Your baby gets the same core group three times: DTaP, Hib, pneumococcal, polio and rotavirus. Rotavirus is drops by mouth, so the number of actual needles is usually three or four, often given as combination shots in both thighs (1).

The repetition is the point, not an oversight. These are priming series: the first dose teaches the immune system, and the later ones raise the response to a level that lasts. That's also why the gaps matter more than the exact dates — a dose given a couple of weeks late still counts, while a dose given too close to the one before it may not.

At 6 months two things join the list. Flu vaccine becomes possible for the first time, and it's the one vaccine on this schedule you'll come back for every autumn. The hepatitis B and polio series also finish somewhere in the 6-to-18-month window, which is why the 6-month visit looks different from the 2- and 4-month ones in some practices and identical in others. Both are correct.

If your baby was premature or had a low birth weight, the schedule runs by chronological age — the age since birth, not the corrected age — with one exception: a baby under 2,000 g gets the first hepatitis B dose at 1 month or at hospital discharge rather than in the first 24 hours (10).

What shots does a 1-year-old get?

The 12–15 month visit is the one where the live vaccines arrive: MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) and chickenpox. Alongside them come the Hib booster and the fourth pneumococcal dose, and hepatitis A starts any time between 12 and 23 months as two doses at least six months apart (1).

One detail changed here and it's worth knowing before you're asked at the desk. MMR and chickenpox can be given either as two separate shots or as one combined MMRV shot. In an announcement dated October 6, 2025, HHS said toddlers should get chickenpox protection as a standalone shot rather than as MMRV, citing CDC Immunization Safety Office evidence that in healthy 12–23-month-olds the combined vaccine "doubles the risk of febrile seizures without conferring additional protection from varicella" (6). That announcement is part of the 2025 federal actions covered by the March 16, 2026 court order described below, and CDC's posted schedule is the earlier July 2, 2025 version — so whether it applies to your child today is a question for your pediatrician rather than something to settle from an article (2, 5). What is not in dispute is the underlying caution: the 2026 schedules still tell clinicians to counsel parents about the rare febrile seizure risk before using MMRV for a first dose in a child this age, and MMRV stays an option for the second dose at 4–6 years (10). Febrile seizures are frightening to watch and are not usually dangerous, but if the choice is two shots versus one, most parents want to be asked.

The 15–18 month visit adds the fourth DTaP, and then — apart from the yearly flu shot — the schedule goes quiet for about three years.

The 4–6 year round, before kindergarten

Before school the four boosters repeat: DTaP, polio, MMR and chickenpox, each getting its final childhood dose (1). Practices often call this the kindergarten round, because this is the set most states check at school entry.

A second MMR dose isn't a top-up for a first that failed. About 93% of children respond to one dose and about 97% to two, so the second dose is there to catch the small group the first one missed (15).

What vaccines do 11- and 12-year-olds get?

Three: Tdap, HPV and MenACWY, usually at the same visit, with a MenACWY booster at 16 (1).

HPV is the one parents ask about most, and two things about it are commonly misread. It can start at 9, and starting earlier is not about sex — it's about dose count: begun before the 15th birthday it's two doses, begun at 15 or later it's three, because younger immune systems respond more strongly. The second vaccine parents ask about, MenB, is not part of the routine set; it sits in the 16–23 bracket as a shared decision with the doctor, which means it's offered and discussed rather than scheduled (1, 10).

Tdap at 11–12 is a booster of the DTaP series, and it's the start of a pattern that runs through adult life — a tetanus-containing booster roughly every 10 years, which we cover in how often you need a tetanus shot.

What changed in the vaccine schedule in 2026, and which one is in force now?

If you've seen headlines about the schedule being cut and then heard nothing since, here is the short version: the cuts were announced, then a federal court put them on hold, and the schedule on CDC's own site went back to its earlier version while the case continues.

The sequence, dated:

• October 6, 2025 — HHS announced that COVID-19 vaccination moves to individual-based decision-making, and that toddlers should get chickenpox protection as a standalone shot rather than as MMRV (6)

• December 2025 — The federal vaccine advisory committee (ACIP) voted to drop the universal hepatitis B birth dose for babies whose mothers test negative for hepatitis B (12)

• January 5, 2026 — An HHS memo moved six vaccines — rotavirus, flu, RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B and meningococcal — off the universal list, to either higher-risk groups or shared clinical decision-making. The schedule had listed 17 routine childhood vaccinations before the memo (5, 25)

• January 26, 2026 — AAP published its own 2026 schedule, keeping routine immunization against 18 diseases, and said the federal changes depart from longstanding evidence (7, 8)

• March 16, 2026 — In American Academy of Pediatrics v. Kennedy, Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston granted a preliminary injunction staying the January 5 memo, the appointments of 13 of the 15 new ACIP members, and the votes that committee took in 2025 (4, 5)

• April 29, 2026 — Immunize.org reported that CDC had restored the official US immunization schedules to their July 2, 2025 versions to comply with the order (2)

• April 29, 2026 — The government filed a notice of appeal in the First Circuit (No. 26-1503). As of that tracker's October 7, 2026 update, briefing is ongoing and no appellate ruling is listed (3)

What the January memo actually moved

Guideline Central, which renders clinical guidelines in a standard format and says it built this one in participation with CDC, published the January 5, 2026 schedule as three separate tables — and that structure is the clearest picture of what the memo did. Its own notice on the page says the 2026 CDC schedule "is currently under review and has been challenged by several U.S. medical associations", and that it is included "for transparency and reference only" (28).

• Recommended for all children — DTaP and Tdap · Hib · pneumococcal (PCV15, PCV20) · polio (IPV) · MMR · chickenpox (VAR) · HPV

• Certain high-risk groups only — RSV antibody · hepatitis B (mother positive or status unknown) · dengue · MenACWY · MenB · hepatitis A (travel)

• Shared clinical decision-making — Rotavirus · COVID-19 · influenza · hepatitis A · hepatitis B · MenACWY · MenB

Those seven products in the first row are the "11 diseases" the headlines referred to: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hib disease, pneumococcal disease, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and HPV (28).

The hepatitis B line is the one that changed most concretely for a newborn. Under the memo, for a baby born to a mother who tested negative, the suggestion is that the first dose is given no earlier than 2 months of age, rather than in the first 24 hours (28). That is a change in timing of about eight weeks for the most routine shot in the hospital — which is why it drew the most comment, and why the pre-change birth dose is what the restored schedule still shows (1).

So the practical answer for a parent in October 2026: the pre-change federal schedule is the operating guidance. Most pediatricians are following the AAP version; according to Vaccinate Your Family, twelve national organizations representing more than a million clinicians endorse it, among them the American Academy of Family Physicians, ACOG and the American Medical Association (11). Ask your own clinic which one they use — the article suggests exactly that question below. This is a live case and the answer could change; the date on this article is the date of the facts in it.

Two words you'll hear at the desk are worth decoding. Routine means it's recommended for everyone in that age group, so it's on the list by default. Shared clinical decision-making means it isn't on the list by default — it's offered if you or the doctor raise it, and the conversation weighs your child's own risks. The practical difference isn't the evidence; it's whether anyone brings it up. If a vaccine matters to you, ask for it by name.

Does my insurance still cover these?

As of October 2026, nothing in the 2026 changes or the court order altered the Vaccines for Children (VFC) program or Medicaid coverage, and local public health bodies did not expect the ruling to change cost, billing or reimbursement (5). Insurers committed to covering the pre-September-2025 recommendations with no cost sharing through the end of 2026 (11) — that commitment has an end date on it, and what your own plan does in 2027 is a question for your insurer, not for an article. VFC provides vaccines at no cost for children who are uninsured, on Medicaid, American Indian or Alaska Native, or underinsured at a participating clinic; the clinic front desk can check whether your child qualifies. If you are told a routine childhood vaccine is not covered, that is worth a second call rather than a shrug.

Where do CDC and AAP actually differ?

Less than the headlines suggest, right now. With the January memo stayed and the federal schedules rolled back to their July 2, 2025 versions, the two line up again on the routine childhood vaccines and on the ages in the table above (1, 2, 10).

Where they diverge is in what AAP commits to in writing and what the federal schedule has been moving away from: AAP's 2026 schedule keeps routine recommendations against 18 diseases, including yearly flu vaccination for every child from 6 months, routine hepatitis B from birth, and COVID-19 vaccination for children aged 6–23 months and for older children whose parents want it (7, 8). Those are exactly the items the January memo would have moved to risk-based or shared decision-making.

For a parent, the useful version is: your pediatrician's handout may say AAP rather than CDC at the bottom, and that is not an error. If the two ever disagree on something your child is due for, the question to ask is simply "which one are you following for this, and why" — and the answer belongs on the record either way.

What if my child is behind on shots?

Being behind is normal and it is fixable. There is a published catch-up schedule precisely because so many children need one, and the usual outcome is a slightly compressed series, not starting over (1).

Four things worth knowing before the appointment:

• Doses almost never expire. For most vaccines a long gap doesn't reset the series — your child picks up where they stopped. The exception is rotavirus, which has an age ceiling rather than a gap rule: if the window closed, it closed.

• Minimum intervals are what matter. Catch-up works by the minimum spacing between doses, which is often shorter than the routine spacing, so a child can cover a lot of ground in a few months.

• Age changes the dose count. Some series need fewer doses when started later — Hib and pneumococcal largely drop off for healthy children after certain ages, and HPV needs two doses rather than three if started before 15.

• No record is not the same as no vaccine, but it's treated that way. If records can't be found, CDC's advice is to vaccinate or revaccinate rather than guess; repeating a vaccine is considered safe. Antibody blood tests are an option, though they aren't always accurate (13).

Who decides what your child needs for school?

Not CDC. School and childcare entry requirements are set by each state, which is why a family that moves can be fully up to date in one state and missing a required vaccine in the next (14). Recommendations and requirements are two different lists that overlap but aren't identical: a vaccine can be recommended and not required, or required by your state and not currently on the federal routine list. Your state health department's school immunization page is the authority for your own address.

What to expect after a shot, and when to call

Most reactions are local and short: a sore, red or swollen leg or arm, fussiness, sleepiness, reduced appetite, and sometimes a low-grade fever for a day or two (16). With MMR and chickenpox the timing is different — a fever or a mild rash often shows up 7 to 12 days later rather than the same evening, which catches parents out (15). Rates, how long reactions last and the rare ones are covered in our guide to vaccine side effects.

One practical point: clinicians generally advise against giving paracetamol (acetaminophen) before a shot to head off fever. In two randomized trials in infants, prophylactic paracetamol reduced fever but also lowered antibody responses to several vaccines (2161208-3)). Treating a fever that actually appears is a different question, and one for your pediatrician. Aspirin is the exception that is worth remembering: it is not given to children and teenagers for fever or viral illness outside a doctor's specific instruction, because of the risk of Reye syndrome (26).

Call 911 for hives, swelling of the face or throat, wheezing or trouble breathing, a fast heartbeat, limpness or a seizure after a shot. Severe allergic reactions are rare, at roughly 1 per million doses, and CDC notes that immediate allergic reactions usually begin within minutes of the injection (24, 16). Call the pediatrician right away for a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher in a baby under 3 months, a temperature repeatedly above 104°F (40°C) at any age, or a child who looks very ill, is unusually drowsy or very fussy. The same list applies if the fever lasts more than 24 hours in a child under 2, or more than three days in a child 2 or older (17).

On the question that sits behind a lot of searching: a nationwide Danish cohort of 657,461 children found no increased risk of autism after MMR vaccination, including in children with a vaccinated sibling with autism and in children with other autism risk factors (19), and CDC's own review reaches the same conclusion (20).

Where your child's vaccine records live

CDC does not keep vaccination records, and neither does any single national system — the record is yours to hold (13). Most states and some large cities run an immunization information system, a registry that collects doses given by participating providers, and your doctor can usually pull from it. Registries can be incomplete, especially if your child has had shots in several states or at a pharmacy.

What actually works: keep the paper card with the birth certificate and passports, photograph it after every visit, and write down which clinic gave what, so you know where to request an official copy later. Schools and former clinics often hold records for a year or two after a child leaves, and are worth a call before you assume the record is gone (13).

Living with the schedule: the questions people ask next

My child has a cold — do we postpone? CDC lists "mild acute illness with or without fever" among the conditions commonly misperceived as a reason not to vaccinate, and says vaccination should be deferred for a moderate or severe acute illness and given as soon as it improves (27). The clinic makes that call, so the useful move is to describe the symptoms to them and let them decide rather than cancelling on your own.

We're travelling — does anything change? Yes, sometimes earlier rather than extra. Hepatitis A can be given from 6 months for travel, and an early MMR dose is used for infants travelling to places where measles is circulating (1, 10). These are early doses, which usually means the routine ones still come later; a travel clinic or your pediatrician works out the timing.

My child is scared of needles. It's worth saying out loud at the desk. Nursing-while-vaccinated for babies, a cold pack, a numbing cream applied in advance, sitting upright and distraction all help, and most clinics are used to being asked.

We moved states. Recommendations are national, requirements are not. Pull the record and check your new state's school entry list before the first day, because a child who is fully up to date can still be missing something the new state requires (14).

My child has an egg allergy, or a chronic condition. Egg allergy is no longer a reason to avoid any flu vaccine (10). Conditions affecting the immune system, and treatments that suppress it, do change the plan — sometimes adding vaccines, sometimes ruling live ones out. That's a conversation with the specialist who manages the condition as well as the pediatrician.

Can we spread them out? Parents ask this a lot, and it's a reasonable question to put to the doctor rather than to the internet. What is worth knowing going in: the published schedule sets ages and intervals for each series, and a spread-out plan usually means more visits. Your pediatrician can tell you which doses genuinely have flexibility and which have hard windows, like rotavirus, and can write the plan you agree on into the record.

How to bring this up with your pediatrician

Bring three things and the visit does most of the work itself: the record (the card, a portal screenshot, or the state registry printout), the dates of anything given elsewhere — a pharmacy flu shot, a shot in another state, a dose given abroad — and a written list of your questions, because they evaporate the moment a toddler starts crying.

Four questions that get you a usable answer:

• "What is my child due for today, and is anything outstanding from before?"

• "Are you following the AAP schedule or the CDC one for this, and does it change what you'd give?"

• "Is anything here time-sensitive — something that stops being possible if we wait?"

• "Can I have this written on the record, including anything we decided not to give today and why?"

That last one matters more than it sounds. A vaccine in the shared-decision category is one nobody has to raise — so if you asked and declined, or asked and it wasn't available that day, having it written down is what makes it come up again next time instead of quietly disappearing.

If you feel brushed off, the neutral way to press is to ask for the reasoning on the record: "Can you note in the chart what you recommended and why?" Clinicians answer that question willingly, and it gives you something to take to a second opinion if you want one. And if the obstacle is cost rather than advice, ask directly whether your child qualifies for Vaccines for Children — clinic front desks can check, and many families who qualify don't know it (11).

Before you decide you've fallen behind, look at the record

Almost every parent who searches this schedule is really asking one of two questions: did I miss something, and is it my fault. The honest answer to the first is usually "look it up rather than reconstruct it from memory" — appointments blur, a sick week pushes a visit, and a vaccine given at 13 months instead of 12 is on time, not late. The honest answer to the second is that the schedule is built with that in mind: the published catch-up rules exist because missed and late doses are common enough to plan for.

So the one lever worth pulling this week is small: get the actual record in front of you — the card, the clinic portal or the state registry — and bring a single written question to the next visit. "What is my child due for, and is anything outstanding?" takes a minute and ends the guessing.

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How Welltory helps — and what it cannot do

The limits first, and they're sharper here than usual. Welltory is a general wellness product, not a medical device, and it is not for your child. Welltory's own help center says measurements may not be accurate for people under 18, because the body systems of people under 18 work differently and the algorithm is less reliable in that case (22). The app does not diagnose, detect, predict, monitor, prevent or treat anything, including vaccine reactions. It cannot tell you whether a shot worked or whether a symptom is expected. For your child, those are questions for the pediatrician, and nothing in an app replaces that.

What it can do is keep a record of the adult in the house. Parents get their own shots in this story: the Tdap that adults need every ten years, the yearly flu shot for everyone around a baby too young for one, and whatever else the adult schedule puts on the list — see when to get the flu shot and vaccines during pregnancy if a new baby is on the way.

You note the day; the app records the rest. Add a tag from the plus sign at the top of the feed — "Tdap", "flu shot", "kid's 2-month visit", "up three times". When the Today screen marks a stress or rest stretch it asks "What happened?"; tap a suggested tag, type or talk, and correct the tags before saving.

Then look at the days after next to the days before. Resting heart rate, heart rate variability, stress minutes and Battery are recorded the same way every day, and sleep analysis shows how your heart rate changed overnight (Battery and stress minutes need iOS with an Apple Watch or Oura; detailed sleep analysis needs an Apple Watch). In a smartwatch study after mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, resting heart rate rose from each person's own baseline for a few days and then came back (23). The comparison that means anything is with your own recent week, not with a number marked normal.

The weeks around a baby's vaccine visits are rarely about the vaccine. They're broken nights, a fussy child and a parent running on four hours. That shows up in the data as reliably as anything does, and it's the part people dismiss when they later wonder why a whole month felt impossible. Over a few months, My Patterns collects tags from stress and rest stretches (iOS with an Apple Watch or Oura) and shows what your worst days have in common; patterns appear at around seven tagged events in a month.

A record you made, for your own appointment. The Journal (Premium) keeps your measurements, tags and notes, and from the web app you can export a CSV (Dashboard → choose a chart → Export). Any pattern there is an association to discuss with your own doctor, not a cause.

The red flags stay the same, in the same words, whatever any app shows: Call 911 for hives, swelling of the face or throat, wheezing or trouble breathing, a fast heartbeat, limpness or a seizure after a shot. Call the pediatrician right away for a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher in a baby under 3 months, a temperature repeatedly above 104°F (40°C) at any age, or a child who looks very ill, is unusually drowsy or very fussy. (16, 17).

How we made it

Made with AI tools, then edited and fact-checked by the Welltory team. See our Editorial & AI policy.

Written by Tatsiana Yashyna.

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