To me...The Sims 4 toddles are better. They look like two-three year olds and act like young two year olds. The independence is nice for me. I like having toddlers but not having them overrun the game. I haven't played anyone version of the Sims, bit I've seen stuff on YouTube and the younger versions just seem like a nightmare.
I use MCCC to make it so that I can have more than 8 Sims in a household and I play on a lifestage that is even longer than the long lifestage. I just had a baby age up to toddler in a household with 9 Sims and will have three toddlers for two Sim weeks until the oldest toddler ages up to child. If the toddlers were harder, this would be a nightmare. Right now, it's manageable. I don't want toddlers to take over my game. Honestly, they're hard enough as is. I had a single mom have quads (again, thanks to MCCC) and one of them got taken away by social services. I was devastated. For me, they're already hard enough.