Parenting Tips & Tricks!

Love the idea of this thread! I think it's hard to raise toddlers in TS4, I usually make one parent stay-at-home because I want my toddlers to build up skills and that's not possible when they are in daycare. Also, when they have higher skills, toddlers cry less and are less annoying. Kids don't take much care but the parents can always help with their homework. I always feel so much relief when toddlers grow up into kids!
And this isn't advice but I always take pictures of my sims' kids and teens. It's so nice to see them grow up!

Toddlers definately get a lot easier to manage with higher skills.
If I have a single toddler, I will let Mum and Dad trade off working days. Sometimes they have schedules that don’t overlap too much. Someone is always home with the toddler/s. I find my families with very young children seldom get out of the house.
With a larger family I would be looking to have a stay at home parent.

With my first set of twins (which I have just now) I gave up on the highchair from the beginning. It’s too tricky when the toddlers wake up starving to get them both food in the high chair. They help themselves to a meal from the counter and go eat it on a chair in the living room instead. Mum has been getting up before the toddlers to cook a big group meal for this (usually pancakes, omelet or French toast).

Independent toddlers can begin to potty train themselves from the start. This was real handy.

(1) Keep everything a toddler needs on the same floor. When I first started playing with toddlers, the family lived in a two-story home. I had their bedrooms upstairs and the rest of the home downstairs. Took to long to get the toddlers to get where they needed to go to do what they needed to do.

(2) At dinner time have someone make the largest serving meal (I think it is 8) and put it in the refrigerator. Toddlers always wake up extremely hungry. Take the meal out of the fridge and place it near the toddler's bed. If it is close enough, the child does not even have to leave their bed to start eating. After they have taken a plate, put the serving platter back in the refrigerator to serve at a later time.

(3) Keep a trash can next to the potty seat, preferably in the same room as the toddler's bed.

(4) Don't bother with the high chair, more of a pain in the rear than anything else.

(5) Reading a bedtime story cuts way down on the chances of a toddler waking up from a nightmare.

(6) Allowing a toddler to make their messes, actually builds a skill - forget which one it is at the moment. If you also have a child or teen in the home, have the child or teen clean up the mess, it will increase their responsibility points.

@LaBlue0314 .
Really good suggestions. My method is to just use traits that make raising them easier, but that gets boring.

I think parenting when it comes to toddlers is good, because it's a bit up to us whether we want a full detailed toddler raising experience, or we want to go the easy road (which might very well include some heavy crying, so I guess it depends on how attached you are to your family). It also depends on how many days your toddlers will stay toddlers. I normally don't raise them perfectly because they will start school in just 4 years, but if you play them for longer periods, you might benefit from good routines.

I raised triplets, which means you really can't expect to get much else done than serving your toddlers. I had to give in and find easy road solutions.

1) Forget about highchairs, they are extremely time consuming and confusing, because sims are less rational than they should be. Say a kid is in the chair already, then parent wants to give food, parent might take kid out of chair, put it on floor, go sit on a bed just to ask kid if he/she wants some food. It takes 45 sim minutes, and before understanding how confusing these situations are designed, you might even cancel the actions because it only tells you they will sit down and talk, the feeding interaction isn't cued until later...

2) If you leave a group meal serving on a table that toddler can reach, toddler will go grab a meal and sit in an ordinary armchair or sofa to eat. I did this only when parents were exhausted and all in the red. Good to know toddlers can help themselves, I don't know if this requires some walking skills, though.

3) You can also feed them fruits (and flowers!) from your parent's inventory. A great time saver!

4) If several adults/elders in the household, lock the nursery door to all except a few chosen. A toddler in need of something seems to attract the masses, everyone flocks to the crib at the same time. This might be caused by each sim's traits/skills but in most bigger families it gets too crowded in the nursery and your active sim is not necessarily first in that queue. It's much easier when allowing access to just a few.

5) Make sure to provide toddlers with skill building toys. When older sims play with them, they learn twice as fast. Might give the toddler benefits later, depending on your ambitions for them, of course.

Great thread. One thing I would add: try to get your household on a schedule. I find that I can run things easiest with large families (of which I have several) when I'm on a schedule. Know when parents need to work and children need to attend school, and don't be afraid of the pause button. It is your best friend. Mealtime is a great bonding experience for families if you can get them all at the table at the same time. Like others have said, if you want your toddler to gain their skills, gonna have to have a stay-at-home parent, but it can still be done if both parents work; best to find a career that allows them to work from home, however. Or have a hobby like gardening that makes money. It won't be easy, but it can be done. It is also rewarding once the kids are grown and you see how far your family has come. At least for me it is.

I often move one of the grandparents in to help with the toddlers, especially if both parents have jobs or if it's a single parent. teens help a lot, too.
Try to max out all of their needs before putting them to bed so they'll stay in bed longer and not wake up starving or something. That way it gives your caretaking sims a moment to shower, sleep, and eat.
Get the potty skill done first- it's so much easier when the toddlers can use the potty themselves.
The giant stuffed animals (like Blarffy) make it soooo easy to max out the social skill for toddlers. Just spam the interactions for a couple sim hours and your toddler levels up like crazy.
If you have twins or triplets, try to keep them on the same sleeping and feeding schedule. Otherwise their caretakers will never find time to sleep!
People who knock on the front door can act as free babysitters while your sim takes a moment for personal care! The toddler can ask them for anything after they've introduced themself.

These are all kinda basic, but they're tricks I use all the time. I currently have two toddlers and a baby on the way in my current household, so I guess we'll see how that goes.

This is how I 'survived' my quadruplets:

(1) I paused the game a lot. "P" was my lifesaver.

(2) I didn't use the highchair. The plates were put in the nursery, sometimes on the floor even. It is good if the toddlers also have a couch to sit on and a table to put the plates afterwards. If the plate is close to the bed, the toddler doesn't need to get up and eats in bed.

(3) One parent stayed at home with the kids. The other one took some days off. If there was a lot to do and my Sim was very tired, I hired a nanny.

(4) The parents were reading bedtime stories every evening, to reduce nightmares. And I put up those lamps that came with parenthood to reduce nightmares

(5) Let them hug Blarfy! The social skill will rise very quickly. :)

(6) I put fruits in the inventory of the toddlers. They can eat fruits when you click on them. That was my emergency-move if they were nearly starving. It doesn't raise the hunger bar very high, but it saves some time.

(7) Sometimes the parents were allowed to drink a potion to max out their needs. (Okay, although this is part of the gameplay, this is kind of cheaty...)

(8) I didn't do this and maybe this might considered cheating, but it is possible to create a group with the grandparents. You can choose cleaning, gardening, fixing broken objects and cooking as group activities, and they can help you out. I think I will do this next time, because it is kind of natural to have the rest of the family over to help. Especially with more than one toddler. :smile:

Just keep everything the Toddler/s need in one very small area. Then it’s easy.

Can you change the title of your thread to “Toddler” tip and tricks or something like that?

Toddlers do learn skills in daycare - I've had tots complete their potty training and pick up imagination skill. Of course, they do learn faster with a stay-at-home parent, and you have more control over what skills they learn.

With one family, I had the father take every other day off work. Since toddlers need a bath every two days, and day care doesn't seem to do that, he'd take bath day off, and spend the rest of the day working on her thinking and communication skill. Fortunately, there was a holiday and a regular day off that worked into the father's schedule, so I think he only needed to take one real vacation day.