How do I stop my sims from picking up their toddlers for no reason?

Autonomy and Free Will off does not mean that the sims will stand there doing nothing if their needs are met. There is actually no way to accomplish exactly that in TS3. They're probably not going to get it into their heads to start a new project (painting, write a book, learn a new recipe, etc.) all on their own like that but they are still going to pet the dog, look out of the window, chat with each other, admire or complain about their own surroundings, etc. With NRaas StoryProgression one can arrange Stasis for sims, that's close but it does keep their needs maxed out 100% of the time and makes sims kind of boring to play and be around. But even then they will do things of their own accord occasionally.

Some of what prompts sims to pick up babies and toddlers (and pets) might be trait related, but some sims will just do that for no apparent reason. One thing that might help in such situations is issuing an NRaas DebugEnabler object reset on the sims so you don't have to make the toddlers active to cancel an action that may not cancel anyway; it's a very gentle kind of reset that merely force-clears the sim's action queue but it doesn't send them home/off the screen or do much else to them.

But that's not really going to cause your sims to stand still doing nothing waiting for a command at all times. The only 100% effective way to do that is to give them some random animation to do repeatedly by using NRaas Animator or a pose player.

Most Sims can't seem to help wanting to interact with their children.

If this is bothersome, do something to engage the child like placing some toddler books on the floor and direct the toddler to read. I have not seen a parent interrupt a reading toddler when the player directs them. Or, direct the child to play with some of the toys in the toy box. As long as you gives the toddler something to do, the Sims (to my knowledge) will not override it. They may cheer for the toddler but, they won't interrupt them.

This happens in my game too. I always thought it was a glitch. There are some wonky things with toddlers, particularly actions with toddlers. For example: If you have the changing table, after washing or changing an infant or toddler the adult sim may automatically put the kid down on the ground and THEN cancel any remaining actions in the queue. Or there is a known issue where reading your toddler to sleep distorts the toddler (stretching them) and then suddenly they are asleep.

In my game if the adults are always busy, they won't pick up the toddler. It's something they will automatically do if an adult is doing nothing and a toddler is doing nothing. If you want to prevent it, I suggest you always keep something in the queue. Unless it's happening anyway, then I don't have any tips. Are the sims canceling actions to pick up toddlers or is it only happening when they aren't doing anything?

_Slavic

It only happens when they're doing nothing. My playstyle is weird because often want my sims to do nothing. Like yesterday when I tried playing both parents are supposed to be sitting on the sofa, and I want them to stay there because in my mind they are relaxing. The dad kept getting up to pickup a toddler though so I got frustrated.

I just added Nraas animator and so far it’s helping. I gave both parents a sitting idle animation and they haven’t gotten up yet

"S_Empress;c-17814470" wrote:
This happens in my game too. I always thought it was a glitch. There are some wonky things with toddlers, particularly actions with toddlers. For example: If you have the changing table, after washing or changing an infant or toddler the adult sim may automatically put the kid down on the ground and THEN cancel any remaining actions in the queue.
_Slavic

This mod will help stop them putting the baby on the ground after changing them:
http://simlogical.com/ContentUploadsRemote/uploads/2192/

"KevinL5275;c-17814636" wrote:

"S_Empress;c-17814470" wrote:
This happens in my game too. I always thought it was a glitch. There are some wonky things with toddlers, particularly actions with toddlers. For example: If you have the changing table, after washing or changing an infant or toddler the adult sim may automatically put the kid down on the ground and THEN cancel any remaining actions in the queue.
_Slavic

This mod will help stop them putting the baby on the ground after changing them:
http://simlogical.com/ContentUploadsRemote/uploads/2192/

This mod is one of my favs, can't stand that they place them on the ground.XD