Anyone know how long it should take to get the parenting skill? I've had one of my sims sit and study parenting every chance she got while she was pregnant and she still hasn't got it. I had another sim study it while her husband was studying for his 5th or 6th body skill point and he got his next bar and she still hasn't learned to be a good mum.

Anyone else having trouble getting it?

Hmm, I think the skill would be very easy to acquire, and be like any other skill, I'm assuming. But I have noticed it does take a while. I think the creators intended for it to be this way to add a touch of realism to the game. I mean you don't learn how to parent in one second do you?

If you wanna cheat, I'd suggest setting your season to fall if you have Seasons, then they'd learn to parent faster.

It takes a while, and quite frankley i think it's useless.

Baby cries, no green stink lines? : feed it.
Baby cries, green stink lines? : change diaper.

It does take a while. That bar thing over her head has to fill twice before her parenting skill is complete. I also found it to be kind of useless as far as real parenting goes. Yes, they do get the option to 'check on' the baby, but in my game, the parents tend to do this autonomously and randomly, and mostly while the baby is asleep in it's crib. They 'check on' the baby by picking it up and waking it and then instead of putting it back in the crib, they lay the baby on the floor....

Yeah, if the baby checking ability is the only advantage they get out of the skill, it's useless. Babies are not complicated... Feed them 2 or 3 times a day, change diapers when they stink and interact wit them a bit just to be a good parent. If the skill also made teaching toddlers slightly faster and encouraging personality traits on children more efficient, it might still be of some use.

OK, thanks for all the info guys. I kinda thought it would make things easier, but I have a routine when it comes to caring for babies which seems to work (baby stinks...change diaper, play, cuddle, play, feed bottle, cuddle, put in crib) so I think I'll just stick to that. They never cry in between the nappy changes.

Another slightly annoying thing about learning Parenting is it doesn't get sped up by the Thinking Cap, at least. I had two adult Sims start studying parenting at the same time, Lilith wearing the thinking cap, and her husband without.

They both completed it roughly the same time. Oh well, at least it only needs to be learned once... they did learn it in Autumn though, so I saw the leaves around the skill bar, so maybe they got that benefit...

Yeah, I started to have a sim study parenting, but it was taking too long and the baby grew up . You can believe I gave that one up quickly. I haven't had a sim study parenting since.

there's no point to studying parenting unless your sim has it as a want and you'll get aspiration points out of it.

It's useless to me because I have Servo's to care for all my Sim babies

that's my routine too, except when the baby spits up ont the parent I get mad so I say "that's it, you lost your feeding privlidges". But then I feel bad and feed it in a sim hour.

Once I had to lock the babies in their room to stop the family from bothering them! So does the "check on" option reduce how often the family goes and autonomously does something useless? Otherwise studying parenting is a waste to me by the sounds of it.

They don't autonomously Check On the baby. There's a slight bug... Checking on the baby when it's in the crib doesn't actually "Tell" you anything - it just makes the Sim pick up the baby. Checking On the baby when a Sim is holding it does work, though.

do these stuff to raise learning rate:
wear thinking cap
study in fall
drink vegetable cocktail
study parenting from the education bookcase(it has it, no?)
return after a sucessfull vacantion and choose the perk that makes sims raise skills faster
have a sim with knowledge as primary/secondary asp. and waste 3 points for the both sides of the brain bonus
not sure, but get 5 takemizu souvenirs and put them on a shelf(source: snooty)

Yeah, I don't think it's useful either. I like to make them study it anyway, just for the principle of the thin, lol. I think it takes about the same amount of time as teaching the baby to walk/talk. Perhaps longer. I don't think it takes too much time though.