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Needs Coffee
retired moderator
#26 Old 25th Sep 2018 at 9:08 AM
I think cribs are unrealistic except for maybe a day or two of toddlerhood. (Mine are toddlers for 8) Most rl toddlers, (in my country at least) move to a bed with a rail by 2 or 3 at the lastest.

Endless food I have there if I need it, it doesn't have to be used just because it's there, but for people having a hard job looking after toddlers, it can be very helpful. What I use most of the time is Bek's booster and her toddler foods but I had no qualms about putting out a sippy for my family with toddler and triplet toddlers. In rl 5 little boys under 4 would just about do in normal parents and I bet they would have some kind of snack option out.

I can't wait to start using the stair +walking mod. I agree though that rl toddlers do not have to be walking to climb stairs or anything else for that matter lol. In an ideal situation in rl the stairs would have a landing after just 4 stairs giving the perfect opportunity for practice at stair climbing without the danger of a full flight to fall down.

The main thing is to be happy with your set up.

"I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives." - Unknown
~Call me Jo~
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Mad Poster
#27 Old 25th Sep 2018 at 12:36 PM
Beds with rails have drawbacks. XD https://www.popsugar.com.au/parenti...ww.google.co.nz
Undead Molten Llama
#28 Old 25th Sep 2018 at 3:42 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Pideli
Haha well when I grew up we had these fence things at the stairs so my little sister wouldn't fall down the stairs. And irl the neighbors or kindergarten teachers could possibly tell the social workers if they noticed something wasn't right with the kids, and we don't have that in the game so the social bitch's crystal ball is a substitute for that... Either way it falls under the "challenge" category that I'd like to keep. In most cases. Haven't thought about having an only-toddler family but that seems quite an interesting challenge now :o


Pfft. Baby gates didn't slow down my kids in the slightest, once they could pull themselves up on things. My son would climb right over them, even if I put up three of them, one above the other. I think the cats taught him, honestly, because they did exactly the same thing. His nickname to this day is "Monkey" for a reason. Even the guys in his unit -- He's in the Army -- call him that now. (And these days he's a master free-climber; not a surprise! ) He never fell while climbing gates, but eventually, he got heavy enough that he'd pull the gates down when trying to climb over them, and he'd come down with them, resulting in owies. So I gave up on the gates at that point. He fell down the stairs once or twice (U-shaped stairs, not a full straight flight, so it was only 6 or 8 steps or so) when he was 18 months or so, got a few scrapes and lumps for his trouble, and it taught him some caution, so it was good.

A few years later, I tried gates again with my daughter...who just figured out how to open them. At about 10 months old or so. Just by watching other people opening them, apparently. I'd get a different kind, that worked differently, and it didn't take her long at all to figure out how THAT one opened. So, in my household, baby gates were utterly useless.

As for the social worker...I modded her out long ago because her coding is utterly nonsensical. Like, it takes DAYS for her to come if you leave an unwanted baby out on the lawn, screaming its head off in deep snow with its icon deep red. But, if you let your child-age kids get poor grades or even just let them have fun playing in the snow until they're "too cold"...OMG! YOU'RE AN AWFUL PARENT and, bang, there she is! Ridiculous. So, out she went. All she does in my game is show up to drop off adopted kids. Otherwise...Begone!

Quote:
And that's exactly the cry I can't stand! When I found out I could get rid of it with toddler beds, I didn't hesitate a second.


Yeah, I suppose I can understand that. It doesn't really annoy me, though. Maybe it's because I raised two real children, one of whom was born prematurely with GI issues and would scream at the top of her lungs, in pain that I could do nothing about, for DAYS. The game's toddlers crying in their cribs for 30 seconds or so is NOTHING!

Quote:
Oh also, I've never tried having the toddlers on a schedule, but that wouldn't work in my large families, the adult sims are too busy!


Oddly enough, I play mostly large families, too. I also often play an age-modded game where toddlerhood lasts 12 days, so I routinely have two or three toddlers in the same household, even if they're not twins. If I'm playing a neighborhood where jobs are a thing, at least one parent quits their job for a bit to raise the kids because nannies are nonsensical, too. Keeping the rugrats all on a consistent schedule is the ONLY thing that allows the caregiving parent(s) to have any bit of life outside of taking care of the kids. If the two or three toddlers in the family are all on the same schedule, then for instance they all have their afternoon nap at the same time, which means the caregiver can use that time to do something not child-related, even if just to take a nap of their own. When the kids wake up, sure they cry for a few moments, but as long as their motives are good they settle down and wait to be let out. (I do use a mod where Sims don't wake up due to noise, though, which makes things easier. That way a crying toddler won't wake up a sleeping one, without having to screw around enclosing cribs with fences. That way, they can all easily share a bedroom/nursery and if one wakes up earlier than the other, it's not a big deal.) Then they all have playtime together at the same time, which also allows the parents to do THEIR own things. (Like make MORE babies. ) If I didn't schedule, it'd be chaos. As it is, it's barely-controlled chaos when I've got 5 toddlers at once (Damn twins!), but controlled nonetheless.

Quote: Originally posted by joandsarah77
The main thing is to be happy with your set up.


Oh, I totally agree! Everyone should totally do whatever they need to do to make their game enjoyable for them. I wasn't judging so much as...not understanding. I've seen so many people on this forum and elsewhere say "I love toddlers!" and then in the next breath they're saying that they pretty much shut them in a room with toys, a baby gate or whatever, and a blanket, and bowls of pet food, or maybe they toss in a couple bottles a day, and then never interact with them otherwise until they're children. That would seem to me to be more the behavior of someone who DIDN'T like toddlers, y'know? I just don't get it. I love the toddler stage, and I enjoy making Sim-parents be parents, with all the work that entails. Oddly, IRL, I hate toddlers. Truly can't stand being around them. I'm hella glad my grandkids live at least 2000 miles away so I'm not conscripted for babysitting. I didn't even like my own kids that much when they were that age, couldn't wait for them to get to be 5 or 6 or so, when you can have a rational discussion with them. If I could have, I probably would have locked them in a room with blankets and pet food. ...Well, OK, not REALLY, but it would've been nice to have some time off from them, at least. Yet, in the game I love toddlers and love caring for them. I suppose it's because they're not very realistic. They have all the cuteness and none of the hell-demon that real toddlers occasionally are.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
Top Secret Researcher
Original Poster
#29 Old 26th Sep 2018 at 7:02 AM
iCad, how big of a family are we talking about here? I'm talking about 14 sims. By the time I've went through the list, the toddlers are in need of attention, so a schedule would be hard for me. Let me also mention that I rarely use the pause function. So I don't see how I could do that without completely changing the way I play :o and I kinda like how it is now.

But maybe I'll try that the next time I play toddlers and see if it really is that much easier

Though I don't have no waking up from screaming hack, since that would make things less challenging, nor aging hack since I think the age times are perfect.
Undead Molten Llama
#30 Old 26th Sep 2018 at 8:44 PM
My biggest households have been communal lots, lots of Sims living together and reproducing in various combinations with jealousy turned off and ACR set so that no one has a "One Sim" that they'll always choose for a partner. Some of those have had 35 or so Sims on them before they start to lag too much to be fun to play so I split them up. I also play a military barracks that'll have anywhere between 1 and 32 residents in a given round. Those don't have kids, though. Some of my households are "normal sized" families; this is usually in non-age-modded hoods because, really, given the short normal adult lifespan most female Sims, barring twins, can only have ~5 or 6 kids at most, unless you force them to be constantly pregnant, which I don't do. So in a "normal" nuclear family in a non-age-modded neighborhood, my households will usually be 8 Sims or less but generally on the high side of that because I like big families. BUT I don't play that sort of neighborhood often. Usually I'm playing an age-modded neighborhood where ACR has a long, leisurely fertility curve and each female (or male, if we're talkin' alien pregnancies; I don't use a same-sex pregnancy mod) can easily have 10 or 12 kids even without twins, if I allow them to do so. (I don't, always; I love that ACR is infinitely customizable. ) OR I really like to play polyamorous groups. Sometimes it's one guy with a harem, which results in lots of babies. Sometimes it's one chick with a harem, which doesn't result in so many kids because she can only squirt out so many. But most often it's a mix of sexes interbreeding as they will, which also results in lots of kids unless I actively curb them. Hence, communal lots with 30+ Sims, sometimes, but generally I like less than 20 because otherwise it devolves into uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) chaos.

Mostly, my Sims free will. I check their wants when they reroll each morning and if there's any I can actively fill, I'll set them up to do so, and then I'll "check in" with them again later in the day to see if any new wants that I can actively fill have rolled up, but otherwise they do as they will, most of the time. I don't have to pause the game much to let that happen. The exception, of course, is baby- and toddler-rearing. They can't take care of their motives by themselves, as older Sims will. (Well, they CAN, with mods and modded objects and such, but I don't use many of the things that'll allow self-caring toddlers, as I said.) So, generally, I assign a caregiver for the day. Or, really, one caregiver per "X" number of babies/toddlers on the lot. (Not always the same Sim(s), if there are more than one "eligible" Sims; if someone rolls up wants to interact with kids, though, they'll be the one(s) who get chosen) and I keep a close eye on them and the little ones over the course of the day. The caregiver(s) get(s) heavily controlled/queued in order to take care of the little ones' needs. This doesn't result in any/much pausing unless I've got an utter horde of toddlers (Which HAS happened, in those aforementioned poly groups) because the non-caregivers mostly run on free will, so it's not like I have to stop and queue up everyone all the time.

Anyway, that's what I do, which works in large households with my mostly-hands-off playing style. It probably wouldn't work well for anyone who feels a need to micromanage everyone in a large household. You'd need to pause a lot, and that would make it tedious. But for the way I play...Well, it works and it means that the household members can have lives outside of childcare, as they'll have only one "on" day in a given stretch of time, depending on the number of household members and the number of babies/toddlers. As for the "no waking up due to noise" mod...I actually got it mostly for pets. I build mostly open-plan houses (because I'm a bit claustrophobic IRL), and it makes it difficult for pets to find a place to sleep if someone's got the TV on in the living/kitchen/dining area and the kids have radios on in their bedrooms, etc. I felt TERRIBLE for the poor things, especially if I had to shoo them off beds in quiet rooms to let a Sim sleep, so I got the mod for the pets, so that they could sleep anywhere! (I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, anyway; my dogs and cats sleep just fine if there's a TV or radio on in the room. Hell, most people do, too. Granted, most people won't sleep through a phone ringing or a baby yelling its head off (Oh, if only...*sigh*), but aside from that, I think it makes things a bit more realistic. That it makes room-sharing easier with babies and toddlers is just a side benefit. It DOES make things easier in that regard, yes, but it also allows me to shove bigger families into smaller houses, which I prefer because I don't like playing large-size residential lots. So, I'm OK with it.

I'm mostly found on (and mostly upload to) Tumblr these days because, alas, there are only 24 hours in a day.
Muh Simblr! | An index of my downloads on Tumblr.
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