Choosing Sex of Babies

[Trinity]

So is it possible to have twins/triplets that aren't all of the same gender?  So far, I've only seen reports of all boys/all girls.  Anyone have a mixed batch?  It seems stupid to not be able to have fraternal twins. 

I have not had mixed genders, but I have had what must be fraternal girl twins because they were not at all identical.

My test family for the watermelon vs apples theory, have both received the fertility treatment, and have had a few sets of multiple offspring, they have not had one set yet that are of mixed gender. I am done with the watermelon/apple thing, and I have been allowing them to eat whatever is in the fridge minus apples or watermelon, still no mixed sex multiples.

[Rhysha]

The Prima guide confirms the apples/watermelons theory. It also says that watching children's TV & listening to kids' music ups your chance of multiples.

[Solowren]

The Prima guide confirms the apples/watermelons theory. It also says that watching children's TV & listening to kids' music ups your chance of multiples.

Pssh. Prima Guide cannot "confirm" anything. The Prima Guide is far more often wrong than right.

[Quill]

I have, however, never had a mixed gender multiple birth, and I'm pretty sure that's a bug that EAxis didn't fix before release.

Uggghhhh!  That's been my preferred way of getting through childcare quickly and ending up with the stereotypical family:  Get mom preggers with twins.  Rush her through to pregnancy.  Save the game, reload until I've got one boy and one girl.  Repeat all care actions twice, badabing, badaboom. 

Not that families with multiples of the same gender are bad or anything, I just like having one of each for some of my families. 

Of course, since we can only play one family in Sims 3, I guess I can live with it until el Presidente fixes it or something. 

[jolrei]

The Prima guide confirms the apples/watermelons theory. It also says that watching children's TV & listening to kids' music ups your chance of multiples.

Pssh. Prima Guide cannot "confirm" anything. The Prima Guide is far more often wrong than right.

A glitch-riddled game with an inaccurate guide.  Check.  All is well with the universe.

I have a 1995 roadmap of Ontario, which was conveniently the only roadmap in my car the last time I headed down the road to Toronto.  This was coupled with the mystical convergence of two other events:
1) My wife saying "Let's take the scenic route."
2) The changing of all the county and provincial road numbers in the past few years.
This naturally increased the "adventure" quotient of the trip, since we were discovering new roads that had not existed at the time of the map, some of which had numbers that corresponded to those on the map, while the older roads all had new numbers.  You might think that the solution would be to simply stop at the nearest petrol station and get a new map, but this was not the case (Mrs. jolrei: "NO, we don't need another new map!  We have one at home!").  We got there in the end (Toronto is not that hard to find, after all), but it was rather later than we had expected.

Using the Prima Guide is much like this.

[Rhysha]

The Prima guide confirms the apples/watermelons theory. It also says that watching children's TV & listening to kids' music ups your chance of multiples.

Pssh. Prima Guide cannot "confirm" anything. The Prima Guide is far more often wrong than right.

Fair enough.

What testing I have done thus far ingame seems to confirm as well, but I haven't been testing as extensively some of the folks here have, so take it with a grain of salt. I had a female subsist primarily on apples or watermelon for the duration of her four pregnancies, so it's a rather small data pool (some spaghetti was allowed for cravings). The three apple-based pregnancies resulted in boys. The watermelon-based pregnancy was accompanied by copious amounts of children's music and resulted in twin girls. Feel free to add that to the data pool if you want.

[Marhis]

Re: when the sex of babies is determined.

My sim is now in a high level of Medicine career and apparently has the ability to guess the sex of the baby chatting with a pregnant sim (under Friendly menu). I have tested it only once, so far (and it worked); so, the sex is definitely set before the birth, unlike in TS2.
I'm planning to do an extensive test, using this feature in different stages of pregnancy, before and after the mother eats stuff, and so on. If you want to try the same, it could be an interesting experiment.

[Madame Mim]

Interesting.

The whole baby thing is just wierd. The chimes play on conception, so you know they're knocked up, but you can still TFB until bhoump.

!

Plus you can talk, listen and rub preggy sims tummy minutes after conception and when Betty Newbie saw Ruby Broke go into labour with Bob Newbies baby she had the option to take the mother to the hospital - where she stayed even after Bob turned up. Then Betty got a new baby in family moodlet for the sprog as well.

[Josef Fritzl]

I can't seem to get any babies that are female...damn Nazis.

[Fifth LMNt]

I'll definitely grant the Prima guides aren't the final word on these things, but how about EA's own coding?  Here's what I found while poking around in the gameplay packages:

<kGenderOffsetPerFoodEaten value="0.15">
      <!--Offset provided to gender random per food eaten (watermelon & apple).-->
    </kGenderOffsetPerFoodEaten>
    <kMaxGenderOffset value="0.5">
      <!--(0-.5) Maximum offset from .5 allowed to be achieved.-->
    </kMaxGenderOffset>

And regarding multiples, that experiment about watching kid channels may have some merit.  Although it still looks like your chance of triplets is still only 3% if you watch kid tv and listen to kid music for 6 sim-hours (whereas your chance for twins is raised to 75% in the same situation, which is pretty cool).  I'm assuming this is for regular sims without the fertility booster; will update if I find that coding.

<kChanceOfTwins value="0.025">
      <!--(0-1) chance of getting twins.-->
    </kChanceOfTwins>
<kChanceOfTriplets value="0.001">
      <!--(0-1) chance of getting triplets, must be less than chance of twins.-->
    </kChanceOfTriplets>
<kMaxBabyMultiplier value="30">
      <!--Maximum multiplier used when determing the chance of multiple babies.-->
    </kMaxBabyMultiplier>
<kKidMultiplierPerHour value="2">
      <!--Multiplier added to base per hour of kid entertainment (tv or stereo).-->
    </kKidMultiplierPerHour>
 <kDoubleKidMultiplierPerHour value="5">
      <!--Multiplier added to base per hour of kid entertainment (tv and stereo together).-->
    </kDoubleKidMultiplierPerHour>

[dcoy]

Think: Adam's apple and... women's melons. LOL.

[Cheencheela]

Think: Adam's apple and... women's melons. LOL.

ZING!

[jolrei]

Think: Adam's apple and... women's melons. LOL.

ZING!

Yes, thank you so much, we've already done this bit.  Old joke is old.

[Cheencheela]

Think: Adam's apple and... women's melons. LOL.

ZING!

Yes, thank you so much, we've already done this bit.  Old joke is old.

I am non-awesome, and non-awesomes doesn't understand squat.
TRUE FACT IS FACT!

[GnatGoSplat]

I had a female sim eat watermelon 3 times during her pregnancy.  It's all she had in her inventory.
No apples at all.  I think she sneaked in leftover lime pancakes when I wasn't paying attention and had a life fruit once.

She had a boy.  D'oh, I was hoping for a girl.

[Roflganger]

I just have the Sim eat the fruit straight from her inventory.  No fuss, no muss, no worrying about whether they'll use the right fruit when cooking.

[ElenaRoan]

I'll definitely grant the Prima guides aren't the final word on these things, but how about EA's own coding?  Here's what I found while poking around in the gameplay packages:

<kGenderOffsetPerFoodEaten value="0.15">
      <!--Offset provided to gender random per food eaten (watermelon & apple).-->
    </kGenderOffsetPerFoodEaten>
    <kMaxGenderOffset value="0.5">
      <!--(0-.5) Maximum offset from .5 allowed to be achieved.-->
    </kMaxGenderOffset>

So...if I'm reading that correctly; if the initial random number for gender is high enough it doesn't matter how many apples or watermelons are eaten.  That certainly explains the odd instances of the pregnant sim subsisting solely on apples/watermelons and getting the wrong gender.

[witch]

Oh sod it. I have a pair of sims with three boys. No more, said I, until the youngest boy is at school.

Now there are two slots left in the family and she's got the fertility buff, she sits of the couch watching kids' programmes and scoffs watermelon constantly. It had better bloody work! 

I want twin girls!

[Gus Smedstad]

So...if I'm reading that correctly

You're not.  The specs are pretty simple.

Chance of a boy = 50%.
Change after eating one serving = 15%.
Maximum change = 50%, to either 0% chance of a boy, or 100% chance.

The 50% limit is probably just to permit some indecision.  I.e. you can eat 100 servings of apples, and your Boy chance will still be only 100%.  Thus you can eat 7 servings of Watermelon and get 0% of a Boy afterward.

3 servings of anything = 45% chance, so you really need 4 to be absolutely sure.  I've done sex selection several times now, and it's reliable.  What can trip you up is you Sim eating things you don't realize have the wrong fruit, either deliberately or on their own.  Or simply not eating enough, early enough.  If you start on day 2, when they typically roll the "Have Boy" or "Have Girl" Wish, they won't get hungry enough to eat 4 times on their own.

Fruit Parfait and French Toast contain Apples, but don't say so in the descriptor.  Eggs Machiavellian contains watermelon.  Stu Surprise can contain either, and you'll never know because the name doesn't change.  Ditto Peanut Butter and Jelly.

It appears that your Sims check their inventory before checking the refrigerator.  So if you're going to cook something that includes a random fruit (Pancakes or Cobbler) that does say, put the right fruit in the cook's inventory and put the wrong fruit in the refrigerator.

 - Gus

[kemowery]

I can't count how many games I've started and stopped and restarted and so forth.  So I can't count how many babies my sims have had.  It's got to be at least 10.  Not a single girl.

Since I didn't have the option to give my sims a double-Y chromosome, I have to assume it's something I can't see.  Is this just a freak of sadorandomness?

[Alex]

Eat less apples, and MOAR watermelons.

[kemowery]

Does that actually have an effect? 

[keirra]

Yes. Search the forum. Search is your friend.

[gethane]

I "knew" that, and still didn't think of all those damn apple pancakes. Damn. Does it work that way too? I guess I was thinking it was if you just ate apples and watermelon raw.

[jolrei]

This thread needs to be appended to the "Choose Sex of BAbbies" thread.

I am going to burninate all the apple trees in my 'hood.  The key problem with the "just boys" issue is that the bloody apple trees are obsequious ubiquitous, and one of the first bloody things your sim can grow.  Consequently, everyone has one.  I have yet to even SEE a watermelon in my game.

Edited for word correction.