Sometimes this drives me nuts. Is there anything a Sim can do to speed up a baby's transition to Toddler? How is a parent or other relative supposed to Help With Birthday, exactly? Just hold them until they decide to grow up? What annoys me is there will be Mom holding the baby, then Dad, who has to work the next day and is already dead tired, will just wake up to go Help With Birthday.

Sometimes they'll transition right at 6 pm. Other times it takes nearly a whole day. I had one baby take nearly two days (probably because he had been born at 6 pm so the game couldn't decide if three days had gone by), and I've had cases of twins where one transitioned right at 6, and the other one took a good 12 hours or so.

Is it something random? I try to make sure my Sims' needs are in the green as 6 pm approaches on the baby's birthday. Because it might be easy, or they might be in it for the long haul.

I always thought it was the pc trying to draw them that caused it. Birthday cakes( i have had to buy a couple in certain situations) helps sometimes. I have had instances where I tried to force it ( tombstone of l&d age baby & cinematic?) and wound up with jawless toddlers but that could be from other reasons. If nothing else just max motives, free skill with the extra members and turn off motive decay while one holds the babe until they change, or that is how I cheat to handle it.

I just about always use the birthday cakes for babies. For me it's surefire, never fails.

When someone's stuck on Help With Birthday mode (just standing there holding the baby), I first try crossing the "Hold Youngster" action. Usually a few seconds after the baby is put on the floor, the transition will happen. If that fails, birthday cake. With poortastic families, you can always sell it back for the same price after the candles are blown.

If that fails, the parents are dying from exhaustion and I'm running out of patience, I just use agesimscheat on and force the transition to the next age.

Happens to me all the time, too. I don't normally do cakes, but I think I might have to start trying that.

I got sick of having the parents drop everything ten times or more just so they could "help with birthday" then get stuck for sim-HOURS holding the kid! I tried getting the relatives to drop the baby on the floor but that doesn't always work for me either.
Now I always buy a cake for the baby/toddler transition... if everything works normally it remains unused - so I stick it into one sim's inventory ready for next time. For later birthdays I don't tend to use a cake - if the sim doesn't grow automatically at 6pm I'll click on them and tell them to grow!

I use always cakes, either the regular ones that come with the game or then Inge's hacked cake at Simlogical. That way you can age a baby to toddler anytime, even just after he/she's born.

Aging up from Infant to Toddler is often problematic for me too, and the other transitions aren`t perfect either. Sometimes it works fine on autopilot. Sometimes the relatives "Help with Birthday", then don`t *help*. I suspect that the stalled "Help with Birthday" is waiting for someone to arrive to watch, but the ones that work OK don`t always wait for everyone anyway. Sometimes I use the cake, and it works fine, and everyone enjoys a treat. Sometimes I use the cake, and the cake becomes useless after the candles are blown out. Sometimes I use the cake, and the kid ends up growing up without using it. Sometimes nothing seems to help at all, for game-hours at a time. There are so many variables involved that it is difficult to make sense of the mess. I have the Age Sims Cheat turned on all the time [allows you to set the age of any Sim; different from the Grow Up action, but similar results], but I haven`t had to *use* it yet, and all of the forced age-transitions I`ve done were done using other cheats before the Age Sims Cheat became available to me. ::shrug:: Whatever.

I'll try the cake. I have a baby that's just about ready to transition.

Update: It works! You do it anytime after the notice pops up that they have one day until their birthday.

Just click on the cake, and in my case it said Bring Ryan to Cake, which the mother did. Then he transitioned to Toddler--and just in time for his mom to hurry and plop his butt on the potty!

So in effect they can spend 2 days as babies instead of 3.

And thanks for the info, guys! My Sims thank you for making raising children easier!

(Oh, and right after that the mother became pregnant with #2....)

I use cake or the Insim.

Well, I've transitioned three babies to toddlers using the cake so far, with no problem. It's really cute...whoever's holding the baby tickles the baby's tummy, then "helps" blow out the candles.

i always use the cake and i never have any trouble, ive actually never aged up a baby without cake, i just get too impatient

but sometimes they wont age with the cake correctly if one of their needs is too low (like they need a diaper change or a bottle) and then you can just fix that need, but a new cake, and itll usually work the second time

(my 100th post!)

I've never aged a baby without cake either, usually I make someone take the baby to the cake right after that note comes or then I just use Inge's cake. That's great also because you can use Inge's cake multible times in a row and sell it back when done using. (Sims don't even eat a piece of it!)

Cake time again! I had twin babies transition to toddlers at the same time--each parent held a baby. And their older brother transitioned to a teen the same evening.

I'm so glad I found this info. One day less of infancy.

Wut? I never heard that cakes could help! Thanks! But I have no much problem, every baby is growin' up after 3-4 tries. If someone failed with "help growin up" I put baby on the floor, it lays till the next full hour and wait for the next chance...

Yep, the minute you get the notice that the baby's birthday is a day away, click on the cake, and it'll say "Bring (Baby) to Cake."

My Sims' twins were born before 6 pm on Sunday, so they became Toddlers on Monday evening. Short and sweet!

If the baby's diaper is soiled it won't age. But if anything disturbs the immeidate response of the queues of anyone involved in the birthday transition, then the baby-holder is likely to drop the 'help with birthday' and revert to 'hold baby'. I've seen sims spend literally a day or more tring to get all the queues lined up. Cakes help some but you can still get the problem of syncying muliple queues (which the Sims 2 game engine does very very very very abyssimally poorly). I use sim blender's age the baby dialog now, and generally dont' have to do it more than 3-4 times. Note that if sims put the baby back into a crib instead of down on the floor, the queues seem more likely to be messed up. So it sometimes helps to have the baby holder go to another room to age the baby so they will put it down on the floor if the command failes and then the next command is more likely to go through.

I've actually had babies dump in their diapers right when they're transitioning. I also found it funny how Toddlers fuss when they're on the changing table as a result!

If I time it correctly I can usually age the baby to a toddler right when it's bladder is very full so they can go straight into potty training.

I bet if helps if someone has learned Parenting and can Check On baby to see if its lowest need is bladder.

It seems to be hit-and-miss for me. It's the age transition I like least, because sometimes my Sims go through several cakes before the baby grows up. Since I want them to grow up sometime between noon and six pm (so I can shave a day off of toddler-dom), the stalls can be mildly irritating.

Whenever I have twins, I usually only buy on cake. One of the family members will help one toddler grow up using the birthday cake, the rest of the family will gather 'round to watch, leaving the other twin to grow up quietly with no complications. Saves me money and time. :D

But the Birthday cakes are the best way. just make sure everyone is in the room with the birthday cake first, or you'll be waiting an hour for mum to walk across the room.

For me, if I have trouble growing up a baby, I use MATY's baby controller -- when the pop-up appears stating that the baby's birthday is a day away the option to grow them up appears. I hardly ever bother with cakes unless I have an anti-aging mod as I can never get the sims to grow up in time (they always grow up on the way to the cake or before blowing the candles out).

It once took two sim days for a baby's birthday to happen. Then, it glitched up and the grandma died, and I had to wait FIVE more sim days.

I bet all the time your Sims were constantly waking up to Help With Birthday, too.

That would be a nightmare.