C’mon, let’s give poor Brandi a fighting chance! Let’s make better sim parents!
Way back in 2005, Pescado released a mod, the Baby Controller, to help make parenting more effective in Sims 2. That mod looks like this… for reals! Hey, is that were “stink eye” comes from?!
I wanted my sims to take care of babies more intelligently and, as always, more autonomously. I did a lot of testing to come up with a Better Babies Cocktail that does just that. You can see it in action in this clip from one of my tutorials where the Ottomai, after a particularly wild weekend, are left to handle five infants at once. And they do it beautifully.
To get this level of care, you need to place the mod on the lot and Turn on Manage Babies or Toddlers. That’s it. I find it amusing to have them deal with bottles, but you can also choose to have bottles disappear on their own.
So what did I do to the mod?
The first tweak I’ve made to this mod is to give it a more baby-friendly model, so there’s not a stink eye hanging over the crib. I’ve chosen the bear in the pink shirt and I often use an OMSP to put it in the crib with the baby as if it’s a particularly garish gift from a well-meaning grandparent.
Tweaked P’s Baby Controller – Bear
Since this may not suit everyone, especially those with medieval games, I’ve also made a version that is just a nice candle, figuring that would be appropriate in most any setting. They are the same GUID, so choose one.
Tweaked P’s Baby Controller – Candle
If you want something different, I’ve written a tutorial on how to change models on MTS and I’ll be putting an updated one here later with more advanced techniques.
What else did I do?
The most wonderful part of this mod for me, that, if handled right, sims will not put babies on the floor, because whether it’s normal to put a real baby on the floor or not, in the game, it just drives me batty! However… P’s mod only works with the space-hogging Maxis cribs. So, the second thing I’ve done is add more cribs and changing tables that the sims can use autonomously.
I’ve added my personal favorites, Honeywell’s Haffa Crib and Changing Table Set and then added HugeLunatic’s Quaint and Teak Cribs and Changing Tables for a little variety. For medieval players, at the request of Fire Princess of LetsplaywithFir3, I added Maylin’s Changing Table (added March 2020).
Originally, I added one of Rebekah’s cribs extracted from TSM, but, then I realized that those are cloned on the dangle monster… not cribs, so… now I’ve updated my tweak of P’s Baby Controller to remove the dangle monster version and add my Medieval Mashup Manger crib. Since the dangle monster shouldn’t be there, if you have an older version, please download an updated controller.
Note these nursery items are not in the packages, only the Baby Controller mod is here. You put the nursery pieces in your game, as usual, and, then, this tweaked version of P’s mod will work with them. Simply put it on the lot and turn it on.
Is that all you need?
In the interest of SimScience, I tested quite extensively, observing baby needs and parent/caretaker interactions, and I tested other mods along with this one.
I document that testing and link to useful mods in this post on MTS:
In summary, I recommend the MoveAwayfromFridge mod and the Visitor-enabled Changing Table (I haven’t tested, but it’s worth looking into whether the additional changing tables are or need to be visitor-enabled). The NoLectureBaby mod and NoNakedEmmiter may also be useful. I don’t recommend NoBabyHarrassment or NoDropTiredBaby.
In my game, I want, eventually, to make a mod that will make learning parenting skills to have a more obvious effect on behavior, but, for now, I just make it a “policy” to give these mods to the parents after one of them learns the skills. Makes sense to me.
If the cribs are blocked, you may, occasionally, still get a baby on the floor, but, if you do, some adult will run over and pick it up, which is kinda cute. Still, route your nursery nicely, and you should not see any more of that annoying behavior.