Toddler

Toddler is the second life stage in The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. It is the youngest life stage that can be created in Create-A-Sim.

The Sims 2
Toddler is the second life stage in The Sims 2, and it lasts for four days. It is the youngest life stage that can be created in Create-A-Sim. All toddlers have the Grow Up aspiration and can start earning aspiration points, although they won't be able to redeem them until they are teens, unless the FreeTime expansion pack is installed.

The manual suggests this isn't possible, but it actually is.

When a baby turns into a toddler, most of its genetic traits become visible for the first time. Its personality and interests are visible, and it is controllable. Toddlers require the most attention of any life stage given their lack of independence. They depend on older Sims (teens, adults, or elders) to feed them, put them into and take them out of their cribs, carry them up and down stairs, and bathe them. If they have not been potty trained, they also depend on older Sims to either change their diapers or take them to the potty when necessary. Unlike teens, adults or elders, children can't interact with toddlers in many ways. Children can tickle toddlers and give them a family kiss, and the FreeTime expansion pack allows children to teach toddlers nursery rhymes.

Toddlers do not have the comfort or environment motives. Toddlers lose energy more quickly than older Sims do, but also replenish it more quickly, especially if they sleep in a crib. In general, they will need to sleep two or three times a day, depending on how tired the player lets them get. They will wake up whenever their Energy bar reaches 100%, regardless of the time. If they are in a crib, they will demand to be let out by screaming and rattling the crib.

Toddlers can gain hygiene by being bathed in a bathtub. If a bathtub is available, older Sims will frequently respond to even a small drop in a toddler's Hygiene bar by autonomously bathing the toddler. Toddlers can also gain hygiene by having their diapers changed, preferably at a changing table.

Toddlers can be fed Smart Milk, which temporarily improves their learning abilities, or regular bottles from a refrigerator; if placed in a high chair, a toddler can also be fed solid food from the refrigerator.

If the Pets expansion pack is installed, a hungry toddler can eat pet food from a pet bowl, and may do so autonomously. If the Apartment Life expansion is also installed, toddlers can sleep in pet beds, thus eliminating the need for somebody to put them in their crib.

Toddlers can have different sets of everyday clothes, pajamas, and Seasons outerwear, if a teen, adult, or elder household member buys some for them. Changing toddlers' clothes and planning their outfits is done by taking them to the changing table. Starting with Open for Business, older Sims can use a mirror to change a toddler's appearance.

Toddlers can be taught three core skills: walking, talking, and potty training. Once potty trained, a toddler will be able to use the potty chair independently. It is not necessary to teach toddlers these skills (there is no penalty for not doing so), but teaching and learning them are often major wants for both parents and toddlers. Teaching these skills also leaves positive memories, and improves their relationship scores with the Sims who teach them. FreeTime added another skill, Nursery Rhyme, but toddlers who learn this skill do not get a memory of learning it.

Toddlers can gain skill points in Charisma, Creativity and Logic from their toys. FreeTime also lets them gain Charisma by being taught a nursery rhyme from any older Sim - once learned the toddler can sing independently and gain enthusiasm for Music and Dance, as well as Charisma skill. FreeTime also adds the Teeny Tikes Activity Table. This toy allows toddlers to gain Mechanical skill points and Tinkering enthusiasm by playing with blocks, and to gain Creativity and Arts and Crafts enthusiasm by drawing.

Toddlers' Wants usually revolve around getting attention from family members or friends, learning the three basic toddler skills, or gaining skill points. Their Fears are similar to those of older Sims. Toddlers can also earn influence points and influence other Sims in all the ways that older Sims can.

Like babies, toddlers can be removed by a social worker if certain motives are allowed to drop critically low, or if they become too hot or too cold. Other than that, as of FreeTime, there is no other way to take them off the lot without cheats. With FreeTime, the Family aspiration benefit Plead with Social Worker can prevent a toddler from being taken away by the social worker.

After four days, toddlers become children. Optionally, a toddler can celebrate this birthday by being carried to a birthday cake by a Teen, Adult or Elder, who will then help the toddler blow out the candles, or by being selected by the player and directed to "Grow Up" from the selection of self-interactions.

PlantSim toddlers
In The Sims 2: Seasons, toddler is the first life stage for PlantSims grown from spores. It lasts four days, and while it has much in common with normal Sims' toddler stage, there are also significant differences.

PlantSim toddlers have the same free will impulses to interact with older Sims that normal Sim toddlers do, and have most of the same wants that normal Sim toddlers do, except for wants to learn the basic toddler skills. If FreeTime is installed, they may roll a want to learn the nursery rhyme, but they come into the world already able to walk and talk, and they don't need to worry about potty training, as PlantSims have no bladder motive. They also start life with all of their spore-parent's skills. They can learn skills in the same way that normal Sim toddlers can, but if they inherit medium or high levels in a skill, they will take longer to gain a point in it.

If a bathtub is available, older Sims will respond to a PlantSim toddler's water motive as they do to a normal Sim toddler's hygiene motive. Even if the Water bar is almost full, a very small drop will frequently trigger an autonomous reaction to bathe the toddler. PlantSim toddlers can also drink from bottles, which will replenish the water motive. They can be placed in high chairs for this, but as with normal Sim toddlers, this is not necessary.

PlantSim toddlers can be placed in cribs, but for them, a crib is primarily a way to keep them in one place. PlantSim toddlers, like older PlantSims, will remain active as long as their sunlight motive is not depleted.

In some ways, PlantSim toddlers require less attention than normal Sim toddlers. They still have to be carried up and down stairs, but if they can get outside during the daytime, or get to a room with a turned-on greenhouse lamp, they can raise their own sunlight motive. Like older PlantSims, they can boost their water motive by doing things that put them in contact with water, if they can get to a place where they can do them. If they can get to a flowerbed, they can also boost their water motive by eating the flowers.

Perhaps the most significant difference is that, unlike normal Sim toddlers, PlantSim toddlers grow into adults. Since an adult's aspiration bar has four times the capacity of a toddler's, it is even more important to keep a PlantSim toddler's bar as high as possible, as their aspiration bar will drop sharply when they grow up.

Player Tips for The Sims 2

 * Keep a close eye on their energy levels and make sure you put them into the crib before it hits rock bottom or things can get difficult. If they've just had a nap on the floor you might find picking them up is difficult as they tend to wander around randomly, cry, and throw tantrums. And if they're tired they won't eat, won't play (so they don't learn skills, socialize or have fun) so their lives become difficult in their opinion, and you might get a visit from the social worker.
 * As well as maximizing hygiene, giving them a bath will maximize social, as toddlers seem to think bath time is the height of the social calendar. However, it takes a lot of time. To deal with hygiene issues quickly, don't potty train them and just use the changing table when they fill their diapers—after a few seconds they will have full hygiene again.
 * Wait until your toddler gets tired before you feed them, then put them in the high chair and give them a bowl or a bottle. They won't fall asleep in the high chair no matter how tired they are. They will throw a tantrum and refuse to eat, so select the toddler and click on the high chair where you will see "consume food" and that way you force them to eat. Once they've eaten, put them straight in the crib. This way you deal with hunger and energy together.
 * One way to get them to potty train easier/quicker is to wait until its red. It will fill the bar quicker in the long term.
 * Toddlers like to splash in toilets, and will do so autonomously, so a good way to prevent messes is to put the bathroom upstairs. If you only have one floor, when you catch a toddler about to splash click on his/her thumbnail and cancel the action . When you mop up, they will try to splash again. Putting them in their crib or highchair will stop them.
 * If one toddler has a bottle and another hungry toddler is nearby, they will attempt to take the bottle for themselves.
 * There is a great cheat called maxMotives (type it just like that) which will boost a Sim's needs into a full green bar (hunger, energy, bladder, etc.). This is especially helpful for toddlers because they're always yelling for something whether it's being hungry, tired, needing a diaper change, etc. Just click on the toddler's thumbnail, bring up the cheat bar with Ctrl+shift+C, type maxMotives, and all your problems are solved. You can use this cheat as many times as you want. This way, mom and dad won't have to constantly be getting up for little Johnny's late night bottle and can focus more on teaching him how to walk, talk, and potty train (they'll also be able to get some sleep and enjoy their lives).This cheat is also very useful for the toddler if the nanny is coming (because older Sims are going to a community lot) just in case you get a bad nanny, your toddler's needs won't get low and the social services van won't be pulling away when you come back.

Using Smart Milk
Skills are essential, but they can be hard to raise, since toddlers' motives decay quickly and they learn slightly slower than older Sims. The only way to improve this without cheating is with the assistance of aspiration rewards. The player can use Smart Milk to enhance a toddler's skill-building rate. Sims fed with Smart Milk as toddlers may continue to learn skills at a faster rate as children, which can help them significantly with their careers as adults or in college as young adults. However, once they become teens, their skill building rate will be the same as that of Sims not fed with Smart Milk.

The Sims 3
Toddlers are included in The Sims 3, and are once again the youngest life stage that can be created in Create-A-Sim. Toddlers can be assigned two traits in Create-A-Sim, or will have the same two traits they were born with if they grew up from a baby. They appear to represent Sims between 1 and 3 years old, and take seven days (if lifespan is set to 'Normal') to progress to the next life stage: Child.

As in the previous game, toddlers can be picked up and held by teens and above, and must be carried in order to get up and down staircases and into their cribs. While an older Sim is carrying a toddler, they can still perform most normal social interactions, such as talking to people or watching TV. Toddlers can also be placed in vehicles and brought to community lots, though they are unable to enter many rabbit hole buildings.

Toddlers in The Sims 3 will begin to cry if they are hungry, tired, lonely, or need their diaper changing. There is also a minor glitch in the game that can occasionally cause a toddler to cry even if all its motives are full. The length of time a crying toddler will continue for is influenced by how many low motives it has. Toddlers will usually stop crying quickly if they have only one low motive, and will usually entertain themselves temporarily before getting bored and crying again. However, if negative moodlets resulting from a toddler's low motives continue to stack up, the toddler will cry for longer before ceasing. If a toddler is running low on all four of its main motives (hunger, energy, social, and hygiene) at the same time, it will cry indefinitely and only stop to go to sleep (which will cause the energy meter to rise and automatically take care of one of the aformentioned motives). Toddlers will also burst into tears for a short time when candy is stolen from them by Evil Sims. When a toddler is in its crib or high chair and needs something, it will scream and cry every few seconds, as it feels trapped. The scream sounds vaguely like the word "stupid". It's possible that this similarity is an intentional Easter egg.

Toddlers currently have fewer interactions than they had in The Sims 2. Most significantly, they can no longer ask older Sims for food or attention. They can, however, still play with certain toys (available individually in Buy Mode) through which they can learn skills. These skills will not be visible in the toddler's Skills Journal until it ages up into a child and performs an action related to the skill (eg., if the toddler reaches level one in logic, the skill won't appear in the skill journal until it begins playing chess, using the telescope or reading a logic book). Older Sims also have the option to read to toddlers, provided that they have purchased children's books from the bookstore. Reading different children's books to a toddler can help develop the Logic, Painting and Writing skills. The table below demonstrates more specifically how each skill can be developed:

Toddlers also no longer need to be bathed regularly. Instead, when their hygiene meter falls into the red, older Sims (Teens, Young Adults, Adults, and Elders) can simply use the 'Change Dirty Diaper' interaction to instantly bring it back up.

Once again, Toddler marks the first life stage in which Sims can wear clothes, although their choices are limited to Everyday, Sleepwear, and Formal.

In order for The Sims 3 toddlers to age up well and allow the player to choose a new trait for the child stage, the toddler must always be potty trained and taught to walk and talk. This differs from toddlers in The Sims 2, who only need to be in gold or platinum aspiration at the end of the toddler stage in order to age up well.

Things that Toddlers can do that lower life stages can't: Things that Toddlers can do that higher life stages can't:
 * Learn some skills
 * Learn toddler skills: Walk, Talk and Potty training
 * (Once skills are learned) Walk, Talk and use potty
 * Change Hair, Clothes, etc.
 * Ride the elevator by themselves.
 * Play inside toy box.
 * Be tickled.
 * Be Attacked with the Claw
 * Read toddler books
 * Sleep in a crib.
 * Be taught how to walk, talk, and use the potty.
 * Be picked up and carried, tossed in air, tickled, and snuggled.
 * Be Attacked with the Claw
 * Read toddler books (Childish Sims can)
 * Play inside toy box
 * Play with xylophone and pegbox

As of patch 1.6, children can play peek-a-boo with toddlers, read to them, hug them and feed them, significantly increasing the total number of interactions possible with toddlers. In addition to drinking from bottles and eating baby food, toddlers can also eat regular Sim food, (Mac and Cheese, Waffles, Cookies, etc.) but in order to do so the toddler must be placed in a high chair and the food must be processed in the Food Processor and fed directly. Toddlers with a full hunger meter will not eat when fed in the high chair; when a bowl of food is given to them, they will poke at it in confusion, make a mess, and then throw the bowl off the table in frustration.

Vampire Toddlers
If a player has Late Night installed, it is possible to produce a toddler that is also a Vampire when one or both of a new baby's parents are vampires, with a 50% chance of vampirism being inherited when the baby has one vampire parent and a 100% chance when both parents are vampires. A vampire toddler can be physically distinguished from other toddlers by their different skin colour and glowing eyes (much like adult vampires) and will bite at the necks of teddy bears, Imaginary Friend dolls and other soft toys when playing with them. Vampire toddlers initially have the same motives as regular toddlers, but will eventually switch to having unique vampire motives and abilities upon reaching the Young adult stage. The only premade vampire toddler is Belisama Hemlock.