Maxis wants pregnant sims to waste away?

[Sagana]

I don't let pregnant sims cook their own food - it takes too long. Either the husband or an older kid cooks for them (sometimes a nanny does) or (if they can afford it) I buy a buffet. I also put a daybed (or just a real bed if I don't have a daybed with reasonable stats) in the most sensible room closest to the kitchen, if their normal bedroom is upstairs. And I don't let anyone else eat with them. I let them fall asleep in their food (and wake them) 3 times and after the 3rd put them to bed until their energy is high enough for them to eat without falling asleep again. I haven't had one die yet (on the few occasions I've tried, starving to death seem to take a long time if those were the only 2 low - will they really starve/die if you let them sleep a bit?) and I don't usually use mood enhancers or anything like that. Usually I keep them home from work as if I send them and they get morning sick they come home all red. And I try to keep them platinum - usually social/playing with family members will do that. I'm very micromanagement-y tho.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Can I suggest something that I remember Damage recommending back in the early days of sims2 over at SimFreaks - (first, remove any serve food hacks you may have) - get the pregnant sim to serve gelatin.  It's sustaining if the sim is a reasonable cook, doesn't go bad as quickly as other food, and takes next to no time to serve!  And it's quick to eat!

[Emma]

Don't forget to order pizza-and don't accept the delivery! That way all the pregnant sim has to do is serve it. It stays fresh as long as the box is unopened. I use moveobjects on and put them under the porch to stop the sims from grabbing them, then when I need one I place it on the kitchen counter
I actually forgot about doing this until I went on a family I haven't played for a while last night, and found all the pizza boxes under the porch!

[ZephyrZodiac]

If you have a kid in the house, let them loose on Carrigon's pizza oven!  You'll soon have pizzas all over the house!

[Inge]

And of course the women can eat the muffins from the normal kids oven too, even though they can't cook them.

[ZephyrZodiac]

I used to use your hacked buffet table too, whenever a sim was pegnant!

[Karen]

I used to use your hacked buffet table too, whenever a sim was pegnant!

I agree, it comes in very handy in these types of situations.  Put Inge's buffet table in the same room with the bed and have one of your Sims fill it up.  Then place a chair or sofa next to the buffet table, and then the pregnant Sim only has to go a couple of steps in order to eat.

Karen

[ZephyrZodiac]

And if the sim who first filled it has high cooking skills, the food is very filling!

[witch]

That's interesting, I never knew it made a difference!

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, I think it does, certainly it seems to!  One reason I stopped using it was too many of my sims were overeating!

[Batelle]

When I first got the game and only used money cheats for larger families, I had my self-sim popping out kids left and right.  I kept the nursery next to the master bedroom and, since I always put a cheap fridge and a few counters in my nurseries, I was able to maintain her motives through copious amounts of gelatin and without upsetting the design of the house too much.  When I'm playing a multi-generational household I use a combination or the energizer, meditation, and the services of any retired elders that might be wandering around. 

Now, like Inge, I play the game the way I want to play it so it's enjoyable.  Even in Legacy houses, I use a motive cheat to fill in motives (usually fun and environment) that I feel impede the game to a ridiculous degree.  My boyfriend, who would rate an east 8 on the neatness scale, doesn't go into a 15 minute whiny fit when there are dirty dishes, nor does he refuse to perform other functions because of his discontent with the cleanliness of the house.  I also adjust motives when they encounter glitches (like getting trapped in the bathroom by the maid) or when they break queue to weep over roaches or hug a parent returning from work.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Talk about whiny fits!  I've just been playing Veronaville, and moved the Capps and there brood into a house and sent him off to work while she stayed to look after the toddler (he could get the best paid job available, but I couldn't see them surviving on a Team Mascot's pay!) .  Now whenever one of them is in the middle of taking a bath, the other one walks into the bathroom and throws a tantrum because they can't clean the bath because the other one is in it!  Oh, how neat sims drive one up the wall!  Give me Don and his "moue" at the idea of cleaning any day!

[vecki]

I occasionally cheat to boost motives, but my rule on it is that the sim in question has to be in platinum aspiration.  If they're gold, they gotta make their way out to the energiser and use that.  Less than gold, gotta do it the hard way.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Very occasionally I'll stick a flamingo or mediocrity onto the lot to save a sim from going too far into the red, then remove it once they're back up to green.  But mainly, this is about the one area I tend not to cheat in!

[Kristalrose]

You remind me of a forensic medicine professor, who, upon discussing babies dying in the uterus, went "I don't understand what it is that makes women form such a strong emotional attachment to an unborn baby". You can imagine the buzz in the audience.

Never having been pregnant myself (thankfully) I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine that if you've long waited to have a baby and then have a miscarriage, even an early one can be a shock, even if there is no visible fetus yet. Then not to mention having the fetus die shortly before its due date and having to push out a full-term dead baby. I think I can emphatize with that to some degree even if I haven't been through that myself.

Being a mom, and having unfortunatly had a miscarriage once, I know from where I speak.  As soon as we start to think, "Wonder if I'm pregnant", we start daydreaming about the little baby we're going to give birth to.  As soon as we get the little positive line on the Pregnancy Test, we start reading baby name books and picking out nursery furniture and bedding.  As soon as we have that 1st OB appointment, see an early ultrasound of a blurry little being the size of a pea, or hear that baby's early heartbeat, it's real to us, it's a person, a little being inside of us.  And when something happens to this perfect little creature that we've invisioned (even if it was truly deformed and not viable as a human, to us in our dreams it's the Gerber Baby) it's devastating.  We blame ourselves.  There was something wrong with us, or we did something wrong, that caused the miscarriage.  We mourn the loss of a miscarried child similarly to how we would mourn the loss of a living child.  (I say similarly because I got over the loss of my little peanut, but I don't think I would ever, ever get over the loss of one of my kids.  I keep telling people that if something happened to one of them, they'd better dig two graves and be prepared to burry me beside them!)

Yeah, JMP, it's an emotional thing that you wouldn't understand, kind of a "you have to be there" thing.  And, Bliss, your professor was a pompous ass, and I'm glad he's teaching and not practicing with that lovely bedside manner!   

[ZephyrZodiac]

Yeah, JMP, it's an emotional thing that you wouldn't understand, kind of a "you have to be there" thing.  And, Bliss, your professor was a pompous ass, and I'm glad he's teaching and not practicing with that lovely bedside manner!

But what an attitude he's passing on to a new generation of doctors!

[IgnorantBliss]

But what an attitude he's passing on to a new generation of doctors!

The forensic medicine teachers have been some of the least humanistic people I've ever met. It's a good thing they most deal with dead bodies  . During one lecture, a teacher referred to a car accident killing several young people a tragedy. Not because of the future lives unlived, but because of their future taxes produced as working grown-ups left unpaid.

[FreakyRufus]

I would imagine that upon going into a field like forensics, one would almost have to develop a complete detachment from the death of individuals that are unknown or be faced with the inability to function in that job.  Kind of a graveside humor that serves as a defense mechanism.  I would think that eventually they'd become so used to it (their attitude, that is), that they wouldn't realize their attitude was offensive to others.

[IgnorantBliss]

I would imagine that upon going into a field like forensics, one would almost have to develop a complete detachment from the death of individuals that are unknown or be faced with the inability to function in that job.  Kind of a graveside humor that serves as a defense mechanism.  I would think that eventually they'd become so used to it (their attitude, that is), that they wouldn't realize their attitude was offensive to others.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what happens. Everybody who works in medicine has to develop a defensive mechanism of some sort (or they'd be a mental wreck in no time), but the forensic medicine people have to go a little further with theirs, considering how depressing the stuff is they work with every day.

[cabelle]

You remind me of a forensic medicine professor, who, upon discussing babies dying in the uterus, went "I don't understand what it is that makes women form such a strong emotional attachment to an unborn baby". You can imagine the buzz in the audience.

Never having been pregnant myself (thankfully) I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine that if you've long waited to have a baby and then have a miscarriage, even an early one can be a shock, even if there is no visible fetus yet. Then not to mention having the fetus die shortly before its due date and having to push out a full-term dead baby. I think I can emphatize with that to some degree even if I haven't been through that myself.

Being a mom, and having unfortunatly had a miscarriage once, I know from where I speak.  As soon as we start to think, "Wonder if I'm pregnant", we start daydreaming about the little baby we're going to give birth to.  As soon as we get the little positive line on the Pregnancy Test, we start reading baby name books and picking out nursery furniture and bedding.  As soon as we have that 1st OB appointment, see an early ultrasound of a blurry little being the size of a pea, or hear that baby's early heartbeat, it's real to us, it's a person, a little being inside of us.  And when something happens to this perfect little creature that we've invisioned (even if it was truly deformed and not viable as a human, to us in our dreams it's the Gerber Baby) it's devastating.  We blame ourselves.  There was something wrong with us, or we did something wrong, that caused the miscarriage.  We mourn the loss of a miscarried child similarly to how we would mourn the loss of a living child.  (I say similarly because I got over the loss of my little peanut, but I don't think I would ever, ever get over the loss of one of my kids.  I keep telling people that if something happened to one of them, they'd better dig two graves and be prepared to burry me beside them!)

Yeah, JMP, it's an emotional thing that you wouldn't understand, kind of a "you have to be there" thing.  And, Bliss, your professor was a pompous ass, and I'm glad he's teaching and not practicing with that lovely bedside manner!   

I had two early miscarriages between my first and second daughters. I'd already bonded with those babies, named them and imagined what they'd be like. Although I was immensly relieved that nature had indeed taken care of things I was still heartbroken. Realistically I know that up to 50% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage even before the mom realizes she's pregnant but I still mourned for them. I was luckily able to go on and have two more children but in some way the pain & sadness of those miscarriages will always be with me. When I was pregnant with my middle and and then my youngest daughters I had recurring nightmares that I miscarried or that they were stillborn.

As for pregnant sims I officially suck and cheat. I nearly lost Dina Goth, my first pregnant mom. I found Merola's Energizer Painting and stuck it in the bathroom of every house (easy for me to find). It's just the way I prefer to play. I think the way pregnant sims' mood bars drain is pretty stupid anyway. I wasn't that much of a "wilting flower" when I was expecting.

[cwieberdink]

Yeah, I think that's exactly what happens. Everybody who works in medicine has to develop a defensive mechanism of some sort (or they'd be a mental wreck in no time), but the forensic medicine people have to go a little further with theirs, considering how depressing the stuff is they work with every day.

And that's why I'm training to be a midwife not a doctor.  Practicing medicine is dehumanizing in a lot of ways -- and in America where every patient is a potential lawsuit, even more so.  My dad is a doctor.  While he cared a lot about his patients, he never had a "connection" or a relationship with them, the way I have a relationship with my moms.

C

[Assmitten]

I am so off-topic I am now on the moon, but....

Faemidwife, hooray for more midwives in this world, especially the US, which I assume you live in (based on your last post). I had the same midwife with both of my daughters and it was wonderful.

And thank you, IgnorantBliss, Cabelle, and Kristalrose, for your frank discussion about miscarriage. I know it's "just" MATY but it's nice to hear strong women talking about the subject. I touched on it upthread, but I wanted to add that I lost a twin when I was halfway through my last pregnancy. I feel very fortunate that I have her sister now, who is 10 months old, but I still feel a loss. I'm not trying to jump on anyone here, but I often feel like miscarriage is assumed not to be a "real" loss. It is usually more private, and there is usually no memorial for lost babies. So thank you for being open with this. I think I like this place even better now.

[J. M. Pescado]

I feel very fortunate that I have her sister now, who is 10 months old, but I still feel a loss. I'm not trying to jump on anyone here, but I often feel like miscarriage is assumed not to be a "real" loss. It is usually more private, and there is usually no memorial for lost babies. So thank you for being open with this. I think I like this place even better now.

That's because it's NOT a real loss, any more than a build that fails to pass quality testing. Stuff just sometimes doesn't work. You should be happy that the problem was caught early, rather than becoming a post-release problem that would then require drastic measures to deal with. There's loss for you, having to drown it later when it turns out to be defective. IT COULD BE WORSE. Never forget that. Remember, the people at work think of me as an optimist.

[Renatus]

... People at work? Since when did you ever leave your bunker? Your trying so hard to be an asshole you've introduced a huge gaping crack into your coverstory. 

[J. M. Pescado]

... People at work? Since when did you ever leave your bunker? Your trying so hard to be an asshole you've introduced a huge gaping crack into your coverstory. 

Last week, actually. You didn't hear about my business trip? It's like when your helicopter goes down in a flaming heap in the jungle, and you have to walk 30 miles home. I point out, "Hey, at least it's good exercise."