Your experiences with toddlers.

I love them. They're super cute, but I admit that they can be a handful, especially if you have more than one. :D

I have yet to have children in Sims 4 because I'm nervous about trying to raise in game tots! Sounds silly right? Maybe I'll just dive straight in and hope I have as much luck as you guys. Just curious, but do the babies your sims have get any traits or skill bonuses from the parents? I feel like they did in previous sims games. That would ease my mind a bit because I have cooking, gardening, and a few other skills maxed out and the mom has a confident/charismatic trait that would be helpful in early toddler stages....

> @Iridesence said:
> I have yet to have children in Sims 4 because I'm nervous about trying to raise in game tots! Sounds silly right? Maybe I'll just dive straight in and hope I have as much luck as you guys. Just curious, but do the babies your sims have get any traits or skill bonuses from the parents? I feel like they did in previous sims games. That would ease my mind a bit because I have cooking, gardening, and a few other skills maxed out and the mom has a confident/charismatic trait that would be helpful in early toddler stages....

IIRC, you could choose traits for your baby or toddler if the parents read the pregnancy books, but I don't think other parent skills mattered much. With babies in Sims 4, the only thing you can really do is build your relationship with the baby and future toddler by cuddling and bouncing and, of course, feeding and diaper changes.

Levelling up on parenting skill does help, however. With babies, you eventually get the option to ask the baby what he or she needs (though, it's usually obvious - if he's crying and 'change dirty diaper' isn't an option, feed him - and he will have thought bubbles of a bottle or diaper if you need a hint). With parenting maxed out, you get 'super-efficient baby care', which allows you to feed and change diaper in one quick interaction, and it will be a longer period before you need to do that again. (ie, your Sim can safely go to bed.)

With toddlers, parenting skill is more important, since certain interactions aren't available until you level up. The goal is to get all toddler skills to at least level 3 before they age up, since that will give them a boost on kid skills, but there aren't any real negatives if you don't succeed. (I miss the bed-wetting for kids who didn't get potty-trained, but I totally understand why they took that out.) If you get them to level 5, they get even more kid skill. (One thing I miss terribly from Sims 3 and 2 is the crawling stage - the little bugs were so cute scooting everywhere, I never taught them to walk until all the other skills were maxed out.)

I like the independent trait - these kids will skill on their own, and start off with the ability to climb stairs and use the potty by themselves. 'Clingy' and 'angel' are probably the easiest traits. Do NOT choose 'wild' - I did that once, and ended up locking the kid in her room. That kid was spawn of Satan. Also, don't use a high chair - one parent will put the kid into the chair, and before she can put out food, the other parent is taking the kid out of the chair. When the kid is finally fed, she throws the food on the floor. Just put regular adult food on a counter or table, and the toddler will grab it and eat it without all the fuss.

In Sims Freeplay, babies are called "infants" and they have their own life stage with their own hair, clothing, musical instruments, interactions, etc. I don't know why TS4 didn't make the newborns interactive. They are just like a big watermelon with an alien head. Having said that, the toddlers in TS4 are awesome but there are a lot of things missing, for example musical instruments (drums, guitar). They should be able to jump in beds and sofas, they should get dazed after falling down and hitting something. Toddler-proofing a house should be available. Specially pools, they cannot interact with pools. In Freeplay they can be in the pool if an adult takes them in on a floater. They should also be able to ride their toddler-vehicles. I can't ask much, they took 3 years to bring the toddlers, but that "toddler stuff"pack they released fell really short of everything.

And for the love of God, COSTUMES!!! In Freeplay toddlers have cute masks (tiger, ghost, skeleton, etc.) and the dopest costumes (bee, bear, rabbit, pilgrim, superhero, dinosaur, robot and heck, there is even a hat shaped like a turkey. it rocks)