Raising young children is always difficult in RF or in game, but with The Sims, it's next to impossible. Drives me crazy! This is why I don't play families very often.
One of the issues I've had is when more than one older sim gets an urge to care for a little one, they can't seem to work the conflict out. They become immobilized while the child just screams for attention. I've used an extra controllable caregiver sim, a butler, and a modded live-in nanny and these help, but not nearly enough. They get distracted by other activities or, as I said, compete with other older sims to help the kid. So frustrating!
After reading this thread, I checked out a few mods that might help. I know not everyone wants to use mods or can't, but I thought I'd share 3 mods that look good. I'll be trying them in a test save and will report back.
Better Daycare by adeepindigo : For babies, infants, and toddlers. Improves the default daycare system and creates a new modified daycare which can be used when caregiver sims are actually still on the home lot.
Slow Infant Needs - decayed by half | Patreon : For infants only. Cuts their needs decay rate by 50% of the default rate.
Smarter Baby Care — SCUMBUMBO : For babies only. Mod is now updated by LittleMsSam. Improves many baby interactions by helping the caregiver sims to respond to infant needs more intelligently.
I hate playing families, but I was watching a movie, and saw.a film studio called Scarlet Letters and that reminded me of the book, Scarlet Letter, so I made a sim family where Hester Prynne married Arthur Dimmsdale (the preacher that got her pregnant) and they had the original daughter (Pearl) and an infant son (Arthur Jr). It was the infant Pearl that was left outside most of the time, wandering the town, by herself, and the parents didn't even care. One child I can handle, but good heavens, I cannot handle both a toddler and an infant. It makes me wonder how people in real life can handle so many children.
