Author Topic: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household  (Read 50362 times)

Offline Rainbow Dash

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #240 on: March 05, 2018, 09:06:33 PM »
First of all, congrats to @GlazeyLady  :)

I did think about not getting one parent a job but was worried about not getting the money to adopt enough toddlers, I underestimated how much money that Nanocan can make. The father got a job in the Culinary career as the prepare meal work task is something Sims will do autonomously, he did get a few promotions that way and even made a group meal on occasion. His hours meant that he was home during the day to help out too. He did miss a day of work (His choice) so I made him train and look after his kids all day, lol. I didn't think about making him miss work on purpose, wish I had.

I adopted as many toddlers as I could right of the bat, I ended up getting a lot of Charmers throughout the Challenge which was great as they get a couple of positive moodlets from Sharing The Love and can be looked after by total strangers. Any visiting family members that had since moved, visiting Vampires or Sims walking past got taken advantage of by my little Charmers, lol. I even had the Vampire Nexus lot trait to fully take advantage of this, Auntie Lilith was a big help.  :) I always kept one child to help out and to move into a new house with the current batch of toddlers later on.

I made sure to always have the toddlers babbling with one another while working on their skills so I could work on two at the same time. I always made sure the toddlers were in the right emotion needed for whatever skill they were working on and used their traits to my advantage. I also used night lights and the laser light show to keep them in a good mood and leveled their their thinking skills to level three as quickly as possible to prevent nightmares.

My toddlers formed a group with their caregivers (Including those visiting) as a way of indirectly controlling them, but I didn't do it often enough due to forgetfulness. Sometimes my parents would try to read books rather that feed themselves when they were starving or look after their kids. So whenever they annoyed me like that the bookshelf would go straight into the family inventory.

I'm surprised I got through this challenge, it was incredibly stressful, mostly due to how buggy my game was. I got hit with a bug that caused my Toddlers not to age up after six days of gameplay, so I was allowed to return to an earlier save and cake up my Sims. I still got a bunch of irritating minor bugs such as a stuck hygiene bar which luckily, was easily fixed by clearing my cache but yeah, this challenge really tested my patience.  >:(

This was an interesting but frustrating challenge which I probably would have enjoyed more if my game wasn't throwing a fit throughout the entire thing. But I made it in the end.  :)




Offline Kirstie

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #241 on: March 06, 2018, 03:32:53 PM »
It didn't occur to me to skip the potty training, that's a brilliant idea. I spent a lot of time with toddlers on the potty but thought it was ok because they often had the whim to go potty.

I had one parent get a job but once I was near the end I really wish I hadn't, I could have used him in the house.

- Kirstie



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Offline SueDenim

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #242 on: March 07, 2018, 02:05:26 AM »
Congratulations @GlazeyLady!!

Not that I did that well, but here's some things I did and some things I learned:

I had them live in an apartment:
  • it's cheaper than a house and I was worried about money
  • I didn't really think about lot traits making things better; I chose an apartment that was neutral as far as this challenge
  • it's easy to see everything - though occasionally a toddler would wander out into the city1
  • sims just wander into your apartment all the time.  This was useful because they would often then feed, play with, read to, and run flash cards with the toddlers.3
  • when the neighbors are loud (which is a lot), toddlers that would otherwise be way too tired get more time to skill & satisfy their "throw tantrum" whims.
I got rid of anything that would be remotely entertaining for an adult, with the exception of the chess set & heavy bag so that the astronaut would end up gaining logic & fitness.4  I also got rid of the stove.  When I tested, it was clear it was a disaster waiting to happen.  They had a microwave and a popcorn popper.  Toddlers can't pop popcorn, but they can grab a serving that someone else has popped and take the edge off their hunger while trying to convince someone to feed them.5.  I didn't get rid of the bathtub; that was a mistake because the parents & other random adults kept trying to bathe them.6

For the first week and a half, I adopted one child every other day until the oldest was a teenager (he moved out with the odd- numbered children.  Two days later, his sister became a teenager and moved out with all of the even-numbered children).  Then I started adopting one kid/day.  After that, I'd keep one child in the house with the parents & toddlers.  (To be an extra person to for the toddlers to interact with because the parents had really given up by this point.) As soon as a toddler aged up, that kid would be moved in with one of the sets of siblings (theoretically, that would have been room for 22 in total, but I really only had enough money for maybe one more than the 14 that I did adopt).

As 2 in toddler skills becomes 1 in child skills and a 4 toddler is 2 in child skills and (more importantly) a 5 is just a 2, none of my toddlers made it beyond 4 of anything7.  Imagination was the easiest to gain, thinking was the hardest, and movement/communication depended on the toddler in question.  My goal was to get at least 6/child and try for 7 or 8.  I think it would have been better if I'd spent more time on whims.9  Usually by day 2, I could get them to 2 in everything and 3 in at least one skill.  I never got any to 4 in all 4 skills (though I had a couple that got close).   For the first few, I tried to potty train them at least enough so that they'd go on their own.  Then, there were too many kids, too few adults, and I found out that the toddlers would get over it.

They also never had a bath unless I was paying attention to something else, like feeding them.  Neither of the parents actually made a group meal until the last two days of the challenge - so they had to get fed10.  I didn't think to put the highchair behind a wall, so constantly struggled with that.  I did find out it was a lot easier to feed them when the highchair is not near the dining table and even easier when there are no chairs or sofas in the house.11  This did leave my adult sims in the middle of an empty living room13, but functionality over form.

I do have a much better idea of how toddlers work and how to get their skills up under normal circumstances, which is good.  I'm still not going to feed them, though.14


1 There were naked toddlers running around the streets of San Myshuno.  When the spice festival came around, I did send them for food; they got to work on movement and it was so much easier than trying to get them into those high chairs.2
2 I really hate feeding toddlers. Outside of the tournament, I always just cheat to fill their hunger whenever it gets low.
3in my test game, the older siblings kept coming over to talk and play and would help take care of/skill up the toddlers.  In the actual game, after they escaped, they were gone.  I think I saw one cross the street once.
4she ended up lvl. 4.  She had Active, Genius, and Family Oriented.  I also gave her "Business Savvy" because I did see money as the constraint.
5which takes forever because feeding toddlers is awful.
6when they aged up to children, the kids were usually hungry, filthy, and of course sad because no one had noticed their birthday.  They spent their first day as children in tears.  Tears that their parents callously ignored.  At least, the later ones were kicked out the next day while they were at school.  Hopefully, their siblings were able to commiserate with them.
7Seriously, if it had been possible to stop them from moving at movement lvl. 4, I would have.  The time was better spent elsewhere.  As soon as they hit 4 imagination, they didn't get to look at a book, play with a doll or toy, or hear a story.  Their creative days were over.8
8until they were children and their younger siblings asked them to join them playing which raised imagination & communication at the same time.
9That's one thing that has been hard with the challenges.  I tried whims the first time I played sims 4, then realized that I didn't care what they wanted, and I'd just do what I wanted and if they happened to fulfill a whim or aspiration, great.  It's hard for me to remember to check on them, much less to chase them.  I'm amazed at some of your average whims/toddler.
10which sucked.
11with places to sit, when a kid asked to eat, she would sit, the adult would sit, she would ask for food, the adult would get up, the kid would get up, the adult would pick up the kid and put them in a high chair, then the adult would get food, then sit down, then put it on the highchair and at any point in this process either the adult or child could be interrupted by some sim that I wasn't controlling (or the sim equivalent of a squirrel) and the whole routine would need to start over again.12  No chairs gave a lot fewer places for the process to get derailed. For some reason, the beds didn't cause the same problems.
12because feeding toddlers sucks.  Have I mentioned how much I hate feeding toddlers?
13with the exception of the satellite, chess table, punching bag, toddler toys, and ... well maybe it wasn't that empty - just uninviting.
14see above

Offline LenaLJ

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #243 on: March 07, 2018, 04:20:59 AM »
Reading though the strategies i am again amazed on how much we all think alike.
I can now see that not knowing about that watching was the fastest way to raise the thinking skill, not knowning about the highchair naps, and also sending one parent to work was my downfall. Plus the fact that i potty trained them out of habit.

Offline Tynynounours

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #244 on: March 07, 2018, 05:04:50 AM »
Great, great, great congratulations to everyone who went through the whole challenge.

After failing, I had tried to keep playing my file, just to see how much I could have done, but it was hard, and I stopped at toddler 8 because of the difficulty and the repetitiveness. I still learned a few things on my own, but reading your strategies is really great. So really, I'm impressed by everyone who was able to finish, because I'm not sure I would be able to.

Offline HelenP

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #245 on: March 07, 2018, 05:13:52 AM »
I called it a day and posted my score while I still had real time and sim time left. The toddlers were doing my head in, and I got 2 glitches - 1 of my YA's aged up a day late and then Diego Lobo got the 'standing on furniture' bug.

Online Metropolis Man

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #246 on: March 07, 2018, 05:54:16 AM »
I called it a day and posted my score while I still had real time and sim time left. The toddlers were doing my head in, and I got 2 glitches - 1 of my YA's aged up a day late and then Diego Lobo got the 'standing on furniture' bug.

Well, that explains your score. :) You're definitely a better player than I am. When bugs happen, Helen, just pull the team's chain to restart from a previous save.



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Offline MarianT

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #247 on: March 07, 2018, 07:48:15 AM »
I called it a day and posted my score while I still had real time and sim time left. The toddlers were doing my head in, and I got 2 glitches - 1 of my YA's aged up a day late and then Diego Lobo got the 'standing on furniture' bug.

You can get the Sim out of the "standing on bed" bug by going into buy mode and selling all the beds, or whatever furniture he's standing on in the room, then go to live mode, then back to buy mode to replace your beds when he's on the ground again. All perfectly legal.
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Offline HelenP

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #248 on: March 07, 2018, 08:53:17 AM »
Thanks Metro and Marian, I know there are work arounds but to be honest I'd just had enough of toddlers.  Hardest challenge I've ever done and the only one I've ducked out of early.

Online Metropolis Man

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #249 on: March 07, 2018, 08:57:09 AM »
Thanks Metro and Marian, I know there are work arounds but to be honest I'd just had enough of toddlers.  Hardest challenge I've ever done and the only one I've ducked out of early.

Yeah, I was worried from a design standpoint that it would scare off some players. It's a fine line...on the one hand the team does not want to just come up with cakewalks for you guys. But, then we also do not want to put anyone through such a meat grinder that players drop out early.

Offline christinal3106

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #250 on: March 07, 2018, 08:59:51 AM »
@SueDenim The best way to get the hunger thing for the toddlers was to just have a grill.  Then the parents are forced to have to cook family meals.  Then, you can put the food in family inventory, bring it out for toddlers.  Then, the parents are forced to cook group meals every time they are hungry themselves.  I also bought one of those refrigerated cases that came with get to work.  If there was a lot of food in inventory, you can put food in there.  It keeps it cold like a fridge, but doesn't have the functionality of one.  Also, toddlers can get food from it. 

Offline xyliajames

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #251 on: March 07, 2018, 10:23:38 AM »
@christinal3106, the refrigerated case was a genius idea! How did you figure out a toddler could use it?

I went with a grill as well because in my testing, my parents never touched the stove. The one thing I forgot, which ended up doing me in, was the smoke detector. My lot burned to the ground.

How did everyone deal with things breaking? I feel like an idiot because I hadn’t ever realized what the Gnomes trait did until i had already started my file (although, now that I think about it, there’s nothing in the rules about changing lot traits as you go, is there?). I hated the gnomes that popped around in Sims 3 so I’ve avoided that lot trait because I didn’t read it and just assumed it would make random gnomes appear. Again, I’m an idiot and that trait would have saved me a lot of grief and money since the only thing I could think to do when something broke was to have the toddler click Replace. (Ouch.)

Offline christinal3106

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #252 on: March 07, 2018, 12:11:40 PM »
@xyliajames As far as the refrigerated case goes, I found it out by reading toddler threads here on the forum.

I had no problems with fire, I just picked lot traits homey and chef's kitchen.  Every meal they cooked was excellent.  As far as the repairing, I just clicked on it and replaced it.  I had plenty of money from plates alone.

Offline simemie

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #253 on: March 07, 2018, 12:50:12 PM »
For things breaking I used the gnomes trait, but it only works when everyone is asleep by a certain time in the night, or maybe for a couple hours, so I had to rely on replacing the items at times. It worked a dream when my house was packed full of toddlers because I could send them all to bed and the parents were usually exhausted enough to go to bed soon after, if they weren't there already. It didn't work so well when the house was packed full of children though, as they tended to go to bed immediately after school and then were awake again by midnight.

What I'm curious about is how people dealt with the monsters under the bed for children. I gave them nightlights but it seemed every single night the monster would appear (sometimes more than once) and all I could do to get rid of it was sell the bed and buy a new one. When the kids wake the parents, the parents never actually seem to deal with the monster autonomously, unless there's something I'm missing? This was a big pain for me as money was something I struggled with (I had no idea about the can and my working sim never got past level 2 in her career, so I made money by gradually demolishing the house around them haha).

Offline reggikko

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Re: Rug Rats: Surviving a Toddler Run Household
« Reply #254 on: March 07, 2018, 01:11:48 PM »
@simemie I only used double beds to avoid the monsters. Siblings will sleep in the same bed or in bed with a parent.