I've wanted to make teens to take care of the children, but they got their own life as well, but maybe i can figure something out. I rarely have elders in my household (i'm a bad person and i consider them as a burden)

I'd like to have my family sims and the parents in general to stay at home, but i also want them to complete their lifetime want

That's some kind of beauty of this simulation game, maybe they can't have it all. You can try your darnedest but life is going to have to have some sacrifices (with or without cheats). Do they want that promotion or will they sacrifice that to raise a family? Or do they go for it and sacrifice a closer relationship with their children? It's something to think about. Not everyone accomplishes their lifetime goals.

Frankly, by the time Apartment Life was released, Maxis was fully aware that players were creating and using mods and a ton of other content to an unanticipated degree. That's actually why TS3 and TS4 especially have such a clearly defined space for mods and mod usage. You could say then, that they are every bit part of 'the way it was meant to be played' - if there is even any such thing where a lifetime simulation game is concerned.

Still, if you want to play without mods and cc, then you really do just need to practice. It's really not half as hard as you think it is - you're just new at it.

For some reason, sometimes I can't put food in the inventory, either; no idea why. Try again later?

Seasons is useful - it allows for leftovers, and also for meals made with fresh produce, which I try to keep around just for expecting mothers.

Pets is useful, because you can leave a filled pet bowl out, and a desperately hungry toddler will eat from it.

But I find teens and elders really, really helpful. (Especially as I play with an aging mod, and the toddler stage lasts 10 days.)

I have a 20 months old toddler in real life.
Raising kids in TS2 is a piece of cake, you hear me


Oh, that sounds great, I had never heard of such a mod! Where can I get it?
(I really don't like toddlers/children to have lots of skill points, so I end up buying them toys which do not skill.)

Sometimes they burn the food, but at other times, they prepare the food well and hungry parents may appreciate it! Penni is correct, the game is challenging, because otherwise it would have been boring.
The pause button is a great idea and I often use it myself. You will find out how to deal with the kids along the way Try to enjoy them instead of getting tense about them! Good luck

Elders? A burden! Hoo boy, that shows all you have to learn right there.

First of all, you can fill an LTW as an elder and it works just fine. So you needn't be in such a hurry.

Second of all, elders are fun! Not only can they be resources for their adult children (assuming they have any; not everybody has to breed, and not everybody likes being a free babysitter), but ones that you've played all the way through adulthood and gotten permaplat are generally pretty affluent, skillful, and easy to manage. Yeah, you'll have to get used to the ways their need depletion rates change, but they can do almost everything an adult can do, better. They can support their childbearing kids by living with them and going to their high-paying job, freeing young parents from financial worries. They can give them and their grandchildren presents (invite household to Mom's house, Give Gift of expensive or useful item in inventory) even if they don't live with them. If you have BV, they can take their children on vacation with them and send them home rested, refreshed, full of aspiration points, and with extra want slots. If it's in character, they can retire and move in to be live-in nanny, bringing in their pension money as well as their original household worth.

Or they can become Merry Widows and go on dating sprees, giving the player a break from the harder-to-play houses. You could have an Old Folks Home full of elders with nothing to do but run around having affairs and creating drama. You could have old people run businesses, if you have OFB.

What I see, based on what you're saying, is that you want your game to be a certain way - and that certain way is harder than it has to be. That's fine, many people prefer a harder game. But you've set the bar a little higher than your present experience can deal with. So I suggest you lower the bar for a little bit, temporarily. Allow a few things that you ultimately wish to get rid of, until you get better at resource management, which leaps out at me as the element you're having the most trouble with. As stuff that's hard for you now gets easier, start raising the bar at little at a time, until you can actually manage and have fun with a game with the rule set you want.

Also, you're tending to lock yourself into ruts and overlooking possibilities. Experiment more. Ask yourself: What happens if I choose this option I've never chosen before? What if I look at this feature from a different angle? What if I play this family this way and that family another, because every family is different? Realize you're in a box, and think outside it. You don't have to follow up every wild-hair idea you have or that someone gives you, but you should occasionally have wild-hair ideas that open up new possibilities.

There is no One Perfect Strategy for any element of this game. Different sims and different households will require different strategies, and that's one of the things that makes this game hard, but it's also one of the things that makes it so endlessly playable.

Collect bottles into toddler inventory and turn fridge around facing a wall when there is nanny coming. Nanny will complain but not burn your kitchen, Take out bottle when you see toddler needs eat, Nanny will complain but tot gets a bottle by himself. Nanny can go read newspaper and pee on toilet floor. She is only needed for social worker not coming and occasionally she can potty train a tot.

One trick for the child stage is to include them in a scored Outing with their parents. The kids don't have to participate in the interactions, in fact I prefer to do it while they're sleeping. The motives of everyone in the Outing with rise gradually along with the meter, with a significant motive boost if the Outing ends on a high note. The higher the meter, the bigger the boost.

Another one: for kids with their Fun levels tanked from going to school is to have them "View" any deco object, the cheap ones work great. 4 to 5 Views will max their Fun, and they can do it on their own, leaving their siblings and parents free to do what they need to do.

Very interesting, maybe i'll just let it play like that, after all, it would be pretty boring if everyone had happy lives and the graveyard would be full of platinum graves Though sims can die happily without completing their lifetime want too, but i'll try to pursue their dreams as well as i can. Never thought about it that deeply but that's going to change now!

You're right, i'll usually get bored if i keep playing it the way everything turns out perfectly. I always used to look for the best option for the career chance questions, and would load the game if it turned out badly, but ever since i decided make the decisions on my own, it's been improving my gaming experience and has made the game much more funnier

And about the elders, i do like them and playing with them, but they're still like extra sims for me, so i usually try to get rid of them asap, because handling too much sims can turn the game very stressful especially in TS2, in which they act stupidly with free will on, so i'd have to watch over for every sim, otherwise it just adds more frustration. So i do like elders, but they're still kinda useless for me.

Edit: With getting rid of the elders i meant moving them out, or moving the new generation out and leaving the old house for them, not killing them forcefully or something, that would be cruel

Toddlers love their grandparents and will follow them around the house - and wait until you have a toddler who grows up into an elder and holds his grandkid That feels really good. Make space for them - make a room in the garage, and use the pause button

Oh damn, now i feel bad for separating them forcefully Maybe i'll try to make them live under a same roof, who knows, maybe the free will can prove it's worth and make them do smart interactions instead. Highly doubt it though but you never know if you never try!

One thing that many people don't realize is that there's a subtle training mechanism in the game. The more often a want is filled, the more likely it is to be rolled again; the more often an action is performed, the more likely it is to be performed again. So micromanage your sims a bit in the first few days to train them into behaviors you like, get a few aspiration points in the bank (they're smarter when their aspiration is high!), and then loosen the reins a bit.

I love big families and free will. It was a little stressful when I first ran the Hawkins and Newson families, but we bonded over it. And now I'm running with larger household mods and still have never had a child taken by the social worker. So it can be done. But a lot of my toddlers have eaten dog food over the years, too. Not everybody is cool with that sort of thing, and that's fine, too.

Extremely interesting! I've never heard about such mechanism, that does explain a lot though, i always wondered why some sims went to play piano or paint while other sims didn't, so it is because some sims have done it before, when i try to max their creativity skill. Thank you for this piece of information, maybe i can predict what they're about to do next, so i can keep an eye out for sims that cooks lots of food, so they don't go around emptying the fridge constantly.

I like the idea of a big family, but in practice it's not just what i wish for. I just like to concentrate on sims, which is why i always start with only one sim whenever i create a new game. But now, it is time i saw what free will can do!

This is one of the best things about the game; you can look at their wants and aspirations and figure out their priorities. It helps keep every family and every Sim unique.

As I said, it's a subtle mechanism, dealing in probabilities - and sometimes the sim just doesn't want the thing you think you want him to want. And that is when things start getting really interesting! If you roll with it when that happens, you often realize that the sim wasn't being stupid at all, and that doing things his way will be more interesting than doing things your way.

Trent Traveller of Drama Acres used to be a pain in the butt to play. But when I spent a period not directing him at all, shortly after Trisha left him for Julien Cooke, he started getting platinum moods all by himself, just sitting and playing chess. Of course, he'd almost starve to death in the process. But Tina could interrupt him and call him to the dinner she made. And gradually I realized that this Trent is neuroatypical, asexual, and emotionally fragile. He can't be happy my way, but can be, his way. Unfortunately, since he has demonstrated that he can't look after himself, and Trisha's happy with Julien, either he had to make a friend on his own to move in, or Tina would have to skip college to stay home looking after him. And Trent sucks big-time at making friends. So Tina is an adult without a degree, living at home, taking care of her father, working in the same career he is (obviously he got it for her; he's good at his job, apparently, by the way!), throwing parties, and pretending that everything's fine...and when I send her to community lots, chasing after older men!

And that's how you get story, because there's a retirement home where I send elder townies who have connections to the playables to finish out their lives, and one of them is a Romance sim with an established preference for girls over women; and then there's the highly-sympathetic Pleasure elder next door who has daughters of his own and wouldn't ever touch her but feels like he should keep an eye on her, and her friends are graduating and getting married and starting their brilliant careers, and so many possibilities are opening up here!

If you find it too much and do want to try mods get the no social worker hack and relax. I had one Sim parent with triplets and I was so thankful to know they weren't going to be taken away.

Sounds great but also sounds very strange, what happens to them dying kids if there's no social worker? Do they just die then?

No, toddlers won't die - they're just very unhappy.

If you're careless enough, yes, kids can die. Toddlers and babies can't, though - there's no code for it in the game. So it's just up to you to see that they don't die!

Unless your fridge is empty it's pretty difficult to accidentally kill a child. They can feed themselves snacks from the fridge or make muffins to eat from the toy oven. They can do most things for themselves.

@ Samppuli Just remember one thing it is all in a day to day work. hahhhah LMAO
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Raising kids is why I love playing the sims 2. I get so excited when a sim gets pregnant. If raising kids wasn't part of the game, I honestly wouldn't play it. That's how much I love it.

However, I have to agree to a degree. At times it can be very difficult taking care of younger sims. Sometimes, it gets to the point where I want to pull my own hair out, because I'm so overwhelmed. You think twins are bad, trying taking care of four babies at once. Then a few sim days later, the mother has another set of quads. It's a living nightmare.

I think that Smart Milk is a big help. It makes toddlers learn how to walk, talk, etc... faster, and helps them get logic, charmisa, creativity skills out of the way. Some of my toddlers max out of logic before growing up. As adults, they breeze through their careers.

Oh, and don't undermine Elders. They can be a big help in raising kids. Some of my sims would be lost causes, if it wasn't for their grandparents' stepping in to take care of them as children. Try to think of them being free babysitters.

The mods I use to help with babies and toddlers are: Bottomless Bottle, CribGetOut by Sim Logical; and a babysitter NPC from DMA Sims 2.

I'm really big on routine. Maybe a tad too much but hey it works for me!

Sim toddler wakes up at six and I will take him to the potty first thing. If they're hungry I give them a bottle and then work on walking or talking. Around 11 or 12PM I'll put the toddler to sleep for a nap. If they need to go potty beforehand, I'll do that before putting them down for their nap. While they nap I'll attend to the parent's needs. Once the toddler wakes up I repeat! Of course if the toddler has two parents I'll switch parents and I do give them some play time if their fun gets too low.

I do the exact same thing for twins. Each parents gets assigned a child and they switch each day so they get equal time with both kids. Once in a while if a sim doesn't have enough vacation days I invite their mother/father over to help out. I have that 'Control This Sim' mod so once their relationship is high enough they can help out a bit if needed. Triplets, I usually move in a grandparent if they're still alive.

Of course I don't follow this schedule to a T but that's the basics of it. I don't use smart milk either and I get to teach them all their skills on time.