I think that I am having a similar issue with needs. They're all over the place and go down way too fast and seem to take extra long to fill. I think another issue is with the stairs. My Sims will go into a random T-pose and then reset somewhere else. This might be why they aren't doing what I tell them to, like go upstairs and go to bed. I've noticed it a lot in dorms and now I've been noticing it on my home lots with stairs, too.
This game looks like it requires mods at this point. But the updating schedule is so often that I don't want to be bothered. If anything else, I'll just forget about this and go back to TS3.