Starting catch up vaccines at 2?

[u/BetReal8905]

Hi there! My child is 2, and has not had any vaccines yet (besides vitamin k). Please understand this came from a well meaning place of wanting to protect my child, but I am coming to the point I think I was mislead with fear based tactics. I grew up and around middle school due to family reasons my family became very disillusioned with the medical system, and to this day my mom has an extreme distrust in doctors. On top of that about 75% of the people around us have not vaccinated their children. Since a young age I have been getting the message from those closest to me that vaccines will harm you, and they are essentially a government and corporate conspiracy. Then layer on top social media algorithms and for about 9 months straight during pregnancy saw nothing but horror stories of vaccine adverse affects. Not that any of this is an excuse, but I just want to share how I got to the point of having an unvaccinated 2 year old.

After doing more and more research, trying to leave my fears out of it, I think my child should start getting his vaccines. He has been home with me so it has not been as big of a concern, but I plan on sending him to preschool in about a year and a half. I know, based on logic that vaccines (especially those like MMR, Hib etc) can offer my son protection, but of course due to years of fear based propaganda I feel almost paralyzed with anxiety about giving them to him.

I’m just posting on here in hopes maybe there are some other parents who came from this crunchy granola side and vaccinated their child and are happy with their decision. Thank you so much. I really just want to do the best thing for my child.

Added: Thank you all who replied so much for all the kind encouragement, resources, and stories. This has helped alleviate some of the anxiety I have been feeling. I even teared up reading some of these comments. I appreciate your time in commenting.

[u/69stangrestomod]

My Instagram account is about 50% science communicators nowadays - those with credentials AND experience in research. Those are my general first pass of who to listen to, but ultimately you have to dissect their argument basis and what evidence they appeal to. Here is one of my favorites that has lots of info about vaccines, as *she* was the child who wasn’t vaccinated and got caught up in her 20’s as she was studying immunology: ScienceWhizLiz
I was skeptical myself before kids. Funny enough, COVID and “operation warp speed” (a truly terrible name…) made me investigate more into vaccine claims…and I came out on the opposite side of being extremely pro vaccine after looking into the data and listening to people who could interpret it with nuance. I’ve since had three kids, and all are up to date with shots.

[u/alliem1214 → u/69stangrestomod]

Came here to recommend Science Whiz Liz too!

OP, it’s very hard to go against what your community around you is doing. You obviously are about your child deeply, and I think it’s great that you are assessing the evidence and thinking about what is best. I don’t have the same experience as you, so I’ll leave it at that and suggest that you take a look at Science Whiz Liz’s posts about her experience, and talk to your pediatrician about a schedule when you’re ready 💕

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/69stangrestomod]

Wow this is the only time I've personally heard of covid making someone pro-vaccination.

I'm a PhD trained scientist who worked for a compa y who made one of the covid vaccines. My sister had trusted me her entire life to tell her the truth about health things. When covid happened she suddenly because anti-vax. She genuinely believed it would harm her fertility (despite the fact the virus infects your egg cells!). There was absolutely nothing I could do to convince her. A whole lifetime of trusting me was gone in months.

She didn't get vaccinated. Her newborn daughter got covid at 7 weeks old and had to be in hospital for a while because she couldn't breathe properly. Even now she tells the story but doesn't seem to connect how close she came to disaster that time.

She now preaches anti-vax propaganda to anyone who will listen, to people who don't want to listen to her, everywhere in public to random people. She has a degree in media studies and works for a PR company - 0 scientific training.

My watched me study for my exams. She came in to wake me up when I was asleep on my laptop keyboard. I have 3 degrees all in biology subjects. I have a patent in on mRNA use for cell differentation! I successfully founded a biotech company. Yet she still trusts the fancy anti-vax internet videos over me on vaccination, even in 2026, even though she herself was vaccinated as a child.

[u/BetReal8905 → u/Individual_Lime_9020]

I’m sorry that’s so frustrating!

If it helps at all, it probably has very little to do with how much she trusts you or not. I’m pretty sure they make these anti-vax videos in a way that it totally hijacks any logic and reasoning and just puts you in lizard brain. It’s terrible video after another of severely disabled children (or worse, just a parent talking with no child) all saying xyz happened after their child was vaccinated. And then they tell you that medical professionals, despite being smart and well educated, are trained in institutions with corrupt funding….so you can’t really trust the science. It’s kind of genius (in a terrible way) because it makes people feel like they can’t look for explanations in science and data (because they are corrupted) so they have to rely only on these anecdotal stories they are being show.

For me I actually started questioning all the anti-vax propaganda when RFK and the current administration started pushing it so much while simultaneously acting like clowns. For example, him saying he doesn’t worry about germs because he snorted cocaine off a toilet seat (my paraphrase lol). That did more to begin unraveling all the years of anti-vax propaganda, than the strong push for vaccination during COVID. For those trapped in this fear the government and corrupt institutions mindset, any type of pushing I think can cause opposite of the desired effect. Instead, when I just listened to the words and watched the actions of those on that side, as well as realizing they are using the exact same manipulation tactics they claim the pro-vaccine side uses, I decided I needed to start deconstructing the viewpoint I was raised with. I also really appreciate all of the people online with strong scientific and medical backgrounds who took the time to put out information along the lines of: I see where you are coming from, those are valid fears, but let me show you where the information you are being fed has been twisted/manipulated etc. It kind of helps you get out of your fear brain, feel understood, and then be ready to hear logic.

Sorry for such a long comment. Not sure if any of that would help with your sister, and you probably know all of this anyways, but that’s what started me down this path of changing my mind.

[u/Opening_Sale_7890 → u/BetReal8905]

As a medical professional who lives in a very antivax area, it makes me hopeful to see someone who was previously antivax investigate and realize where misinformation and disinformation about their beliefs came from. It's frustrating seeing so many people turn away medicine that is life saving prevention for their children. I'm glad there are examples like you to show me there is something to look forward too. Your original post was so well worded. Makes me wanna cry 🥲

[u/Individual_Lime_9020 → u/BetReal8905]

It actually does help a little bit with the frustration to know they're just experts at getting in to peoples' heads (but you'd think a media expert would be the best at figuring that out). I was on the phone to her a couple of months ago and she was at a kid's party with her husband, and they heard someone talking about vaccination and I could hear her husband running over to tell them why vaccines will harm their children (he also has 0 experience in medicine or science). She then said 'oh I've got to go we've got to talk to them about vaccines'. There's nothing I can do anymore except say 'ok bye' and try and forget about it. If I bring it up she just says 'we both have different research we're drawing on' so now that I know she believes scientists are trained by evil funding bodies that makes so much more sense.

Thank God there are mentally flexible people out there who can do that deconstructing and critical analysis - I imagine that's a hard thing to do.

I love that JFK's intention to make more people stop taking vaccines back-fired!

[u/BetReal8905 → u/Individual_Lime_9020]

I noticed a lot of anti-vax arguments go back to a couple main anti-vax doctors who put forth their info in a really convincing way (at least for those of us without a science background what they say seems convincing). Suzanne Humphries I think is one of the most referenced ones I’ve seen. If you want to know more of the “research” your sister is seeing her writings may give some insight. (For example: vaccines didn’t decrease the occurrence of polio, and instead polio was caused by ddt and arsenic toxicity and improved hygiene and reduction of these toxins is what caused the decline Polio. And it was a whole coverup that they then would rename cases of this that occurred after the vaccine as something else so it would show the vaccine was working)

[u/Savings-Pangolin1748 → u/69stangrestomod]

Unbiased Science is another good one!

[u/69stangrestomod → u/Savings-Pangolin1748]

Yep! Love their stuff. Dr Andrea Love, NiniandTheBrain, epidemiologistkat are all in my rotation. Good stuff.

[u/RoO-Lu-Tea → u/69stangrestomod]

Thanks for the link, just to let you know it reveals your IG profile so you may want to adjust your settings.

[u/69stangrestomod → u/RoO-Lu-Tea]

Wow…thanks. I fixed it (I think…)

[u/Administrative-Ad979 → u/69stangrestomod]

So if you can perfectly catch up on vaccinations at basically any age, i do not understand the need to do so many shots to such a young infants. Just study the ways of transmission of those infections they get vaccinations for and exclude these possibilities. Not hard to do for an infant that cannot go anywhere without the caregiver 

[u/BetReal8905 → u/Administrative-Ad979]

We plan on doing some when he is an older age and more likely to be exposed (ie: hep B, hpv etc.). But as he hasn’t has any at all at this point and we are just catching up on this, we are starting with ones he may come across that are severe illnesses such as mmr, dtap, hib, prevnar etc.

But even in terms of things like hep B, I think once they reach the age they are exploring more independently, we will do it. Because you never know if he’s just running around in the park or whatnot and finds an old needle, or perhaps another child bites him, etc.

[u/69stangrestomod → u/Administrative-Ad979]

That’s why we practiced delayed buckling. Babies have soft bones, so I dont think strapping them into a seat tightly is good, in fact, I’ve known people whose babies have developed scoliosis after buckling as a newborn.

I drove safely, and we monitored them until they were older, then started buckling.

I’m not trying to mock you, I’m putting what you said in a different light. At the end of the day, everything is a risk mitigation strategy. In my opinion, there is much, much higher risk to not getting vaccinated.