Pregnancy length?

[cwykes]

part of the trick to that is playing the parents long enough for you to get to know what makes them happy and for them to have some skills, some money and some aspiration rewards so there are options to keep them happy.  When you have a lot of kids, the oldest usually gets to be a teen and help out with little sibs.  I have found visitors useful as well for looking after wide awake kids while mum sleeps - ask for attention, ask to be fed etc

[ZephyrZodiac]

I've had 6 kids born in one sim house and always use aging off during the 3-day pregnancy stage. I've never had a problem with all kids getting A+ in school.

Well, everyone's game differs, I guess, and all I can say is that I've had kids stay at c+ until I put aging back on!  It may be different if the kids are born-in-game and have had smart milk, but I'm taking about kids made in CAS, even though they've done their homework and had help from a parent.

[Karen]

For some reason the baby stage always seems to be shorter than the alleged 2 or 3 days claimed in the guides.

You're right.  The baby stage varies in length depending on what time of day the baby is born.  If the baby is born just before 6 pm, you will get the "time to buy a birthday cake" message at 6 pm on the following day, when the baby is just over 1 day old.  If the baby is born just after 6 pm, he/she will be almost 2 days old when you see the message.

Karen

[knitro]

I have also noticed that if i save on the last day of pregnancy and then leave and ocme back to the game, the last day lasts FOREVER...i swear it takes like 2 extra days..very annoying.
karen

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, mine usually woohoo at bedtime (often about 3 am) and babies are usually born around 7 am! So I suppose my babies age at about 2 and a half days.

[questar]

The Inseminator hack has the pregnancy mod which shows pregrancy stats. Sims pregnancies last 75 hours. So a little longer than three days.  But I have nooticed that the game's mechanism tries to schedule the pregancy for when the woman is in a bad istuation either spatially or physically or mentally.  So it might be 71 hours but her bladder is red - well, then the baby will come when her bladder is at full red rather than after she has gone to the bathroom.  The game prefers if she is in a tiny room (the bathroom) so that when everyone comes to see the baby there will be a traffic jam. Or if at 70 hours she is really depressed but ti sgoing to watch television then the baby will come before she cheers up on TV shows. I don't know why the game set it up this way but actual hours are secondary to creating some kind of risky or troubling or otherwise dramatic scenario!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

[ZephyrZodiac]

It's like when a sim gets promoted three times in a row - and has to keep going back to work an hour after arriving home!  I forget which career it is, but I think it's probably Slacker!  Sometimes it's timed with a day off in between - but usually if the sim goes to work already tired, all they have time for is a cup of espresso before the pool car comes back for them!

[Oddysey]

Hey, espresso is good. Sleep, she is for the weak.

[agcons]

I spent months doing nothing but building so I didn't discover a lot of things about the actual game play until quite recently.  That includes aging off or on affecting the lot and not the family.  I cannot recommend aging off in a household with a baby based on the following.

I moved a family of two parents (one pregnant) and a baby to a larger house; I had been playing them with aging on.  I had moved the previous sim owner out of this house months ago, and hadn't played the lot since.  Everything seemed fine for a bit, but I noticed the 12,000-hour "help with birthday" vigil did not start that night as it should have.  I couldn't even "grow up" the baby on my own the next day.  The pregnancy continued normally, though, and now there were two babies.  Then I realised I hadn't heard the aging chime for the adults.  I would have played the previous owner with aging off, so I figured the attribute had to apply to the lot and not the family.

I knew then I would be exiting the lot without saving, so I continued just to see what would happen.  I turned aging on, the birthday vigil started that night, and then things got really grotty.  The game would slow to almost a stop for 10 or 15 seconds (real time) then pick up, the parent holding the infant would dump him on the floor and continue to stand there, and the "help with birthday" action would enter and drop from the cue repeatedly.  Sim parents dump babies on the floor quite frequently, but it's usually to do something far more important like play chess, look out the window, or empty the trash compactor because the maid never will.  I've never seen them drop the baby then just stand there.  I exited the lot (without saving) with as much haste as I've done anything.

I quit the game, re-booted my computer, and started it up again.  When I re-entered the house, the first thing I did was turn aging on.  After that everything progressed normally.  I cannot say for certain that the aging being off was the sole or even a partial cause of the weirdness, but as I made no other changes between visits I have to wonder.  I'm not anxious to try duplicating the situation, either!   

[ZephyrZodiac]

Sometimes if you have problems growing up a baby, just buying the birthday cake is enough and will trigger the birthday, if not, take the baby to the cake.

However, I agree about aging on/off applying to the lot - it's a pity it doesn't have a little icon in the corner of the screen so you know which has been selected!

Another cheat anomaly I've noticed is with the AgeSimsCheat, where for example, I aged Mortimer to adult but he still got his pension - really not on!  I mean, would he still be receiving it if I aged him down to a baby?

[ZiggyDoodle]

I do sometimes give a slow toddler in a new family who can't use Smart Milk because their aspiration meter is still only in the green

Use the aspirationLevel (0-5) cheat on your selected Sim; that'll let them feed Smart Milk.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Someone has to have enough aspiration points to buy it though!  And if it's a CAS family with toddler, that may take too long!