More Awesome Than You!

How many sim-hours are each of the trimesters? For some reason it's always unexpected when the view zooms in on the woman and her belly gets bigger, or she has the baby. It might be lack of attention on my part... so I'm just wondering.

(This is without any mods or hacks that affect the pregnancy in any way. Just the regular, Maxis process.)

Sim pregnancies are 75 hours - each trimester is 25 hours.

Right observe, Kyna. And to you, plastic (if you are a beginner): when you see the first bump, take a shoot, and write the hour (2 AM, 5 PM, etc). The next day, the bump will occure 1 hour later, and the birth will occure 1 hour later than the second day. So don't plan wedding parties at the third day...:).

In fact, if you want your female sim to go on honeymoon, don't plan them while she's pregnant or she can't go!  So just a quiet little wedding with just the two of them and a few friends?

I rarely have big parties for Romance Sims either, unless the intended spouse is Family and has rolled the want - I just get the knot tied before they can back out, LOL!

No shotgun weddings? Darn!

Oh, you can have the shotgun wedding, just no honeymoon!  Or the bridegroom will go alone - and who knows what he'll be getting up to! ;D

Hmm, I always thought the pregnancy was supposed to be exactly 3 days, but my sim ladies always seemed to be a little late  :D. The 25 hours x 3 explains it.

Actually, you CAN have the wife go on honeymoons when she's pregnant- it just has to be before the first belly pop! I just had this happen a few weeks ago with my legacy heir- she was newly pregnant but hadn't popped yet, her and hubby had a wedding party, and though I didn't expect it, off she went into the limo!

But post-belly pop, no dice.

Well, while she can still go to work, that makes sense.

I love Shotgun Weddings!!  Breaking into a Dixie Chicks song "You cain't afford no ring, cain't afford no ring, I shouldn't be wearin' white, and you cain't afford no ring. . . . Baby's on it's way, baby's on it's way, dang, hurry, kiss me quick, cause the baby's on it's way. . "

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v252/kristalrose/Sims/snapshot_10416669_10416799.jpg)

Does anyone else get annoyed that the pregnancy lasts as long as it takes for the toddler and the baby to age? I feel like it is really unrealistic- the pregnancy should be more like one day, and the aging of the baby faster as well- and childhood should be longer...

Maxis set the ages by how much could be done in those lifestages. Children can't do much really. I personally wouldn't want the children to be any longer.

I think it's a mistake to try to compare sim-life-stages with human ones, as lythdan says, it's set by what can be done in those lifestages.  And the babies are babies for three days since it would be no challenge if they grew up in one sim day!  The same applies to pregnancy, if the babies popped out at the end of one day, it would be little more of a challenge than it was in sims 1 - "Shall we have a baby?" and lo and behold, say yes and there's the crib with the little howler all ready to burst its lungs!

In real life, the third trimester of pregnancy may only take 3 months ... but it certainly feels a heck of a lot longer when you're 5'2" and carrying a 9-pounder.

If the baby is born before 6pm on one day, it can be grown up at 6pm the next day.  A baby's lifestage can be as short as 25 hours, if you time the pregnancy right.  Try sending your wanna-be parents for a little 'siesta' after lunch if you want to aim for a short baby stage.

Since you have the InTeenimater (from another thread), you can use the Biological Clock to specify whether you want a ~3 day (75 hour), ~1 day (25 hour), ~1.5 hour (75 minutes), or instant pregnancy & delivery.  I created the 1 day option for the very reasons you cite.  The time scale in Sims 2 is loosely 1 sim day = 1 year.  I dunno, but most women would probably axe murder the fathers of their babies if they had to lug a baby around in their belly for 3+ years.

Only thing to add to that is, this is really the only time when Aging Off can NEVER be advisable!  Although I never usually do it if there's a baby, toddler or child who hasn't got A+ yet, 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 an extra day, I never do it during pregnancy, or it will last even longer!  At least, so I've found!

Pregnancy progresses normally even with aging off 75 hours

Well, I have often found with aging off it lasts longer!  Seems to, at any rate - but I don't normally count the hours!  But it definitely affects kids and teens ability to get A+ at school!

Huh? What has pregnancy length got to do with kids' or teens' ability to get A+ in school? I'm not following...

interesting question. Waynetta Slob of my beloved Slob family is currently expecting her ninth and the pregnancy has already lasted two full days beyond the normal. Considering that I NEVER use ageing off this is odd but I had noticed that the delivery was about 12 hours late with her eighth child. After delivery the age transitions went normally.
Most likely it is a consequence of using the Elixir of Life so that dear Waynetta could get her 10 kids want,

I think they meant that having aging off affects kids' ability to get an A+.

I think it's set by "perceptual" length of time. Pregnancy can seem to go on forever! But then the next years fly by and it's "how did my baby grow up so fast??!!!"  So I think they got it right  ;D 

For some reason the baby stage always seems to be shorter than the alleged 2 or 3 days claimed in the guides. For some reason the toddler stage seems longer, but I think that's just perception on my part because it can be such an annoying age.

That's what I meant, sorry if I didn't phrase it more clearly!

I am so dim. I had been playing the Godbotherers (baby nine on the way!) with aging off every time Ella-Mae popped a sprog, so that she wouldn't lose too many valuable childbearing years while waiting for the next teen to go to college and let her have another one, but I could have just given her Life Elixir!

(Although whether she would ever get into gold for long enough to take it is another matter. Life is hard when you have six kids at home and only one bathroom.)

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

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!

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

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!   :o

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?

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

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!