Plenty of one and two year old's get their parents up once or more every single night.

That's fine Williukea if you like your method of training best, we all have out own way. My quick method is date for mum and dad, thinking caps on, smart milk in, train all skills over one day. I do have some rules to who can do that method though. Most of my toddler time is spent watching them play, bathing, socializing and going places not training. Toddler skills for me is a quick side trip. I have my toddler life span lengthened to 8 days.

I have 8 days for toddlers too. 4 is just too short! Essential todder mods for me are Inge Jones' crib sleep night patch (I wish this only affected todders, but I'd rather have both babies and toddlers sleep through the night than neither) and Rebecah's toddler stair mods. I also use the sleep mat but only for daytime naps. I prefer putting them to bed at night. I do have some toddler beds that they can get out of by themselves, which I like for older toddlers.

Personally, I consider the Maxis baby stage to be infancy, the first 4 days of toddlerhood to be the baby/toddler stage (I give them bald or wispy hair and onesies or sleepers) and teach them to walk and talk at the end of it. At that point I give them a one year old birthday party, using the age anytime cake with aging off so they don't actually grow up yet. Then I give them an older toddler makeover with more hair and older tot clothes. Then I teach potty training and nursery rhyme.

I spend most of sims time by taking care off their needs on community lots rather than usually at the house (when toddlers/babies are around) . Maybe this insightful stradegy that I used might help you out

The hardest game I've ever played was as a single dad (mom had a post pregnancy trauma-choking and died every time I reloaded the game), and the toddlers were twins, boy and girl... I hired a butler and moved to a new apartment after I got enough money. And even then, I had time to teach all of the skills to only boy toddler. The girl had to grow up badly. But I did not care as it did add to her personality. She was actually the nicest creature in the game, and she was more loved by the father. She was dumb, compared to the boy, but she was more creatively oriented. And when they grew up, graduated and started their own families I was feeling real, parental love and pride towards those two pixelated virtual people.

That's why I don't skip the early lifestages like some players tend to do. It is always interesting and new no matter how many times I play it. There is so many ways one sim can interact and react to other social and non-social happenings around it, and those are usually the ones that shape it's personality. And there's also so many ways a baby, toddler or a child can affect other sim's lives (like losing a child to social services, or in my case a bug where sim dies after giving birth, or changing the life of a romance sim).

Also, as many have already stated it, the longer lifespan (I have 1.5 lifespan mod) really does help. I have 6 days for toddlers and I think that's enough for interesting stories to be made.

Such great ideas...love it! I will be incorporating all of this into my gameplay, as I too play with a lengthier aging mod. Thanks for sharing your method.

I've never really had trouble with babies/toddlers. Even with twins, as long as the household has two adults and hopefully no conflicting schedules. Triplets and quads however ....

You're welcome! Very glad if others like and want to play this way too. It took some figuring to work out the birthday thing, but the first birthday is such an important milestone and the babies were too young for it, and the toddlers too old, so I worked out a way.

You can't throw an official birthday party but I just have one of the parents throw a house party - the parent will still get the party memory and we don't remember our first birthdays anyway. You can still take the tot to the cake and blow out candels and everyone will clap and celebrate like usual, but the growing up won't happen. Just remember to turn aging back on after the party.

For clothes I like fakepeep's stuff - she had great younger and older toddler things.

Here is a pic of a family with a one year old and an older toddler together. I think it gives the effect I want and it gives you the opportunity to use more cute toddler clothes. Hope you have fun!

I do that as well, but don't have a party, I just change how they look, sometimes give longer hair.

That is one BIIIIIG family. The maximum I can handle in pregnant sims is 2, and the maximum number of babies and toddlers that can be managed without utter chaos is usually 2 also. That said, I deliberately play with the Triplets and Quads mod to give my self a challenge.

I love toddlers. I love babies. I let my sims sort of figure out the parenting on their own though. Good sim mums go right to their babies and take care of them properly. I only intervene if the child is in danger of starving. Otherwise, a bad parent is a bad parent and the baby writhes in green stink until it falls asleep or someone finally has a chance to attend it. I use grandparents liberally as well - it puts my elders to work and makes them more interesting to play. They often have more time as well and can teach the toddler skills in households that are likely to bother with that kind of thing.

Unlike Peni, I actually hate strangers handling 'my' kids - I think its weird and creepy if they aren't related and just start faffing about with someone's baby or toddler. Children are even harder. I only allow them to make friends with their parents friends, and their friends' parents - that's more how I grew up (and I wasn't by any stretch of the imagination genuinely friends with my friends' parents...)

That aside, I use a ton of cc to help out in those quadruplet and triplet households. Things like toddler beds (proper beds that enable toddlers to climb in and out on their own), sleepy mats, blankets and such (all on MTS), and the cereal bowl that is floor placeable that let's them feed themselves (look for that one on affinity sims). (Messily of course. There's also toddler eating tables for that - see the PC Sims section of the graveyard.) They stink and cry and that's just too bad really, but the social worker doesn't come for hygiene.

I also have a habit of putting toddler multiples into a play pen and having them stay there until they grow up. I put all of the above in the playpen (assuming that the family is wealthy enough to afford it) and then let the little buggers entertain themselves.

For poorer families, I just make sure the kids don't starve.

I know it's mercenary, but I pick and choose based on my sims behaviour whether or not they're even going to attempt to teach toddler skills, even though some of them ( like the walking and potty training) are bloody useful. A potty trained toddler that can also walk is faster, takes care of its own stink problems and is almost like a child if you put down a toddler bed. It's worth it, but some sims are just not good at parenting so the kids don't learn. Growing up badly doesn't mean the sim never has a good life, just that they had a bit of a rough start (at least in my game anyway) so I don't let it worry me. In some circumstances, it's the only realistic outcome.

So many good ideas! ^.^
Terula, I highly recommend the Triplets and Quads mod. I usually pick "Original", except when I'm feeling silly; but I couldn't leave without it, because it lets me choose which parent is going to stay at home. If I have a Fortune Mum and a Family Dad, for example, it's a no-brainer -- the Dad will be doing the parenting. And that means the Mum won't lose a chance at promotion, because between pregnancy and maternity leave, that's roughly five or six days off.

ETA: Oh, and I don't mind visitors playing with toddlers and babies. Especially when they're part of the family -- an uncle, an older brother, etc. Builds up long-term relationships.

I use aging off. In large households I also use the pause button a lot!
I play mostly with aging off and I love toddlers so it takes time before they become children. Some toddlers can spend 25 days as toddlers.
I think it's easier if your toddler have more than 4 days, it gives you plenty of time to teach them everything.

I start with potty training (even if in real life they learn to walk and talk first). Once that's learnt, I find toddlers very easy. It can take a few days if there are more than one toddler.
Then I slowly teach whatever they wish but I like to wait days before I teach them to walk. I like to watch them crawl around, and they look older when they walk, I don't want them to grow up too fast.

Like others I also use different clothes and hairstyles to make them appear younger or older. (I also use this with children but mostly with teens)

I don't use a sleep all night mod but I use reservable cribs so that toddler can get up. If I use another crib when the toddler wake up and nobody is free I wait until he/she stop yelling then use move object to get them out of the crib. I also use sleeping mats for naps so they can sleep when no one is available to put them to sleep.

I don't use bottomless bottles (yet) because I find it too much cheating and too easy. But I generally hire a nanny when the parents work and since the nanny is stupid and get too many bottles I put the extra ones in the toddlers inventory which is handy when the parents are busy or in the middle of the night. Which I realise is pretty much as much as cheating as using a bottomless bottle so maybe one day I'll get one.

These toddler skills - they can do everything anyway once they are children. I do spend time on potty training, and perhaps the nursery rhyme - not so worried about the walk and talk. Rather peek-a-boo in my households - and every household member has to play peek-a-boo with the toddler, or, much more often in my game, with both of them

Do you have a link? Couldn't find anything under cereal or bowl on Affinity Sims.

Yeah, my post was long, but I actually said that I DO play with triplets and quads, and I also said that I dislike strangers who AREN'T related playing with a family's kids. Makes me think I may have misinterpreted Peni's post.

@Charity,
I'll look for the link tonight (I'm on my work computer now)- Sorry about that!

There is one by MsBarrows at the sims resource called "Free Range Cereal Bowl". I think that's what you're looking for but not sure if we can link to that site here?

Affinity Sims has toddler foods that give you options other than mush, but you have to put a toddler in a high chair and serve them.

As I understand it, the anti-mobbing mods prevent anyone who doesn't live in the house from picking up the baby, which just is not on.

And seriously, who only lets relatives hold the baby? Your best friend from college? That nice lady from work? The little old lady from next door who gave you that good advice while you were pregnant? Why shouldn't they hold the baby, especially if you're right there in the room? I walked the floor with our ex-housemate's baby when the mother was sick. I babysat for college friends so they could get out of the house. I remember - and we have some really cute pictures of - my little sister with one of the younger airmen my dad worked with way back when, who just thought she hung the moon in the sky. When we all went back to Iowa for my gramma's funeral, one of my younger half-sisters bonded instantly to an infant cousin who is not, in fact, related to her at all, being my cousin on my mother's side and my mother's and father's families having all kinds of interweaving small-town connections that made it hard to tell where one began and the other left off.

Being related does not make a safe babysitter, and being unrelated doesn't make one incompetent to give Mom's arms a break.

You can link to TSR.

Found it, thanks.

https://www.thesimsresource.com/dow...-set/id/721336/