This post originally appeared on Sincerely, Mama Malak and was sponsored by I Vaccinate.
It is no surprise that the choices we make as parents towards our children shape the people they become in the future. Parents have a great responsibility in ensuring they make the right choices towards their children. Before becoming a mother, I did not understand how heavily we can impact our children’s lives and their futures. Soon after I gave birth, I quickly realized how important my role was as a mother and how much my decisions could affect my son.
I wanted to make sure that early on I made the right choices when it came to my sons health. Since as a parent, I play an important role in shaping my son’s habits, I wanted to be a good role model by making healthy choices towards myself and our family that he can learn from. I’ve listed five things I do in order to keep my toddler healthy below:
1. Give Vaccinations
Vaccines are one of the top medical practices performed to date because they’ve reduced or even eliminated many diseases and illnesses. They allow your child to be protected against more diseases than ever before. Vaccines are heavily studied over a long period of time and are safe. They are designed to prevent serious or even deadly diseases by working with the body’s natural defenses to help it safely develop immunity to harmful viruses.
I always knew I was going to get my son vaccinated because I wanted to make sure he was safe from any harmful illnesses and had a healthy future ahead of him. Even though vaccinations have prevented many diseases from spreading – these diseases can still come back if not enough people get their vaccines done at the right times. Knowing this, I wanted to protect my baby from a young age and protect those around him. If he didn’t get his vaccinations done and at one point caught a disease that he was not immune to, there would be a chance that he could spread it to others and I would never want my own decisions to be the cause of that.
My son is currently a year and a half old and has received all his vaccinations to date. Our experience with the vaccination process has been great. We spoke with his doctor at each appointment and we were informed about which type of vaccines he was getting done. Once my son got his vaccines, he would cry a little (obviously, ouch needles poke!) He would usually nap right after and wake up not remembering a thing. He never experienced any side effects other than a little red bump around where the vaccine was given. I have full trust in the benefits of the vaccinations and believe the risks associated with them is too low to even be considered (there’s a risk with many other medications that people don’t recognize or even acknowledge!) Vaccinations have saved many lives for many years and I could never imagine putting my son at risk by not getting him vaccinated.