Every Rose Has Its Thorn: Mewling Infants

So yeah, probably most doctors would agree that it's not necessarily recommended to leave newborn infants in snow drifts.

There are several points to keep in mind when raising Apocalypse children:

• Keep them alive.
• Depending on restrictions still in place, spend the absolute minimum amount of time ensuring their continued existence.

They can't actually die as toddlers or infants, even if you set fire to them. But you should probably feed them and try to keep whatever bars you can in the green. Remember that feeding an infant or toddler a bottle from the fridge can be done as many times as desired, even with Culinary restrictions still in effect.

But if you haven't lifted Education, it is entirely up to you whether you bother teaching them to walk, talk, or use the potty. In normal Sims play the reason to do these things is that they will be allowed to choose a 3rd trait when they become children (otherwise it will be random); if you are in an Apocalypse with Education restrictions still in effect, the trait is going to be random anyway. So concentrate on teaching toddlers from the books first - skill points are always welcome, after all.

So what about my twins, and my lack of crib situation? Well, babies will eventually go to sleep on the floor. They do yell about it, and they need to go to zero energy first, but they will nod off. Toddlers complain a lot more, so I don't recommend "sleep on the floor" tactics for toddlers. After midnight, I bought my first crib and shamelessly played favourites by putting Barbara into it. Pick your heir as early as possible if you have multiple kids; I'm sticking with the ladies for the same reasons I decided on a female founder. Your heir need not be the first kid you have, but remember that until your heir is born your spouse cannot lift a restriction, so don't wait too long.

Infants, incidentally, can sleep through any noise.

Anna is pregnant once more (though it hasn't registered yet) so she is once again getting some Kids music cardio (Work Out, then change the station). This is essentially my usual method of play: if you have less than 8 Sims in the house, produce more. In this way you can complete the challenge in a minimal number of generations. It does mean that you have to be careful to keep an eye on all of your Sims, so it's not to everyone's taste. If you have insufficient cribs for the toddlers and the infants, give them to the toddlers, as they tend to scream a lot more.

They've toddlerified. (Excuse the wall cut out; it was tricky to get an angle with them up). Remember that you can't have anyone read to the toddlers, but they are allowed to read the books themselves (go to Open Bookshelf and drag the books on to the floor). I'm following my own advice here; teaching them to walk and talk will not be a priority, and I don't even own a potty (though I may eventually buy one). They still need to be fed, and they still need to be socialised with, but other than that don't worry about their hygiene meter - it will refill when you change their diaper.

Unlike infants toddlers are sensitive to noises, particularly other crying infants or toddlers, but I recommend just putting up with that. It's only four days until they become children, and as long as you make a reasonable effort to keep them alive they should be fine. Of course, if you're following my method, you're going to have to repeat this as the house population goes from 4 to 6 to 8, but it is entirely manageable, as we'll see.

It does get a bit crowded though. With two cribs, I have very little space on the top floor, but the bottom floor isn't useless:

As you can see, I have stashed virtually every 1 square object I'm not currently using down there. Whenever I need the fridge or the sandwiches, I just move the object to the top floor, use it, and then stash it back downstairs. In this way I have enough room for two cribs.

Friday morning, triplets arrive (Diana, Eleanor, and Francis arrive: two girls and a boy). This is where it gets a bit hairy. As a general rule: do not buy more than 2 cribs unless you have the ability to move them, or unless you already have two stories. This is not meant to be taken literally. If you've cleared Politics and have plenty of room, buy as many cribs as you like. But generally, only buy 2 unless you've cleared Athletics, or perhaps Business (you can't sell a crib unless you've lifted Athletics and Business, but if you've lifted Business you may be able to sell enough 1 square objects to give you the room you need).

Three triplets, only 2 cribs (and that's not counting the two toddlers that still have 2 more days to go). Have I overreached?

Throw out your real world parenting books; in an Apocalypse Challenge you need to shamelessly play favourites. The heir gets all the attention; her siblings get attention only if they are in dire need or if the heir is asleep. So yes, this means I'll have a lot of kids sleeping on the floor. But that is a very temporary situation. If I buy an extra crib, then that is 4 more precious spaces of my living area gone forever. And they don't remain toddlers forever, but that space will remain in use until I get Athletics lifted. It's just not a good trade.

Of course, if you really can't stomach that, the easiest solution is to have smaller families. That's absolutely fine, it just takes more generations to finish the challenge.

Early Sunday morning, and we have a visitor:

As a general rule, the earlier you can lift Alien Technology the better; there are rewards (such as the Moodlet Manager) that make the entire challenge fairly trivial. It is optional to lift it at all, but an alien visitor is generally a stroke of luck. The intention here is to have Barbara eventually marry this alien. Of course, she's currently a toddler. But it's important to plan these things. The first requirement is that I need to make contact; Derek is the most alert at this point, so I haul him out of bed and make the alien's acquaintance.

"Hey dude, I'm a cook - and no, that letterbox isn't edible."

Now, there are essentially three categories of Sims that are not under your control:

• Sims that you invited over. With the restrictions currently in place, I cannot invite over anyone that isn't a friend - but I can invite friends between 0600 and 1900; they have to leave by midnight. You can do this any time. It does not have to be a Monday or Thursday to invite someone over - though it does to chat with them, assuming Gamer has not been lifted.
• Service Sims. The paperboy, the mailman, and so on. You can't interact with them at all, until you lift Espionage.
• Walk by Sims. Anyone on your lot that is not a service Sim, and that you didn't invite there. (Note that a burglar is considered a service Sim - you're allowed to beat them into submission, but not to socialise with them). You can socialise with walk by Sims as much as you like.

There is one exception: from 1900 until dawn on a full moon, you must not go outside. Too many zombies around. But it's not a full moon tonight, and an alien is a walk by Sim - so even though it is only 0200, it is completely legal to socialise with this Sim (though not to invite him inside - that's covered by Espionage as well).

The objective here, ideally, is to make this alien a friend. That way, he can be invited over later as needed. If he is young enough, when Barbara becomes a young adult he can become her mate (if he's still an adult or young adult, she'll marry him; otherwise, she'll just seduce him).

Kind of creepy to have dear old Dad planning the father of your children when you're a toddler, but Apocalypses cannot adhere to normal social behaviour.

Unfortunately it didn't go perfectly:

The alien was obviously after money. I didn't make it as far friendship, but I did manage to make him an acquaintance. Aliens appear on your relationship panel just like normal Sims; since tomorrow is Monday, he can therefore be called up to chat. Do that often enough and he'll become a friend; essentially, you just have your Sim dial them over and over again until they're either a friend, or else it's no longer Monday (or Thursday).

Monday morning rolls around, and it's time to pay protection money. This is the last time I will make a special note of this, so I'll be thorough. First, go to the Buy/Build menu and take a look at the Lot Value:

Subtract the Unfurnished value from the Furnished value, and multiply the result by 0.6 (60%):
(17527 - 7019) * 0.6 = 6305 (always round up).

There are two ways to adjust your funds. The first works without any mods. Press CTRL + SHIFT + C to bring up the console and type "testingcheatsenabled true" followed by Enter:

Now work out how much you will have left. I currently have $66664; 66664 - 6305 = 60359. Press CTRL + SHIFT + C again to bring up the console, and type "familyfunds struction 60359" (except substitute your family's name for "Struction" and the amount you should have left for "60359"):

Finally, turn off the testing cheats. Press CTRL + SHIFT + C to once more bring about the console, and type "testingcheatsenabled false":

That way will work without mods, but I think you may agree it's a bit tedious. If you have Twallan's Master Controller (with the optional Cheats module as well), there's a much simpler way. Recall I worked out that I need to spend 6305. In Live Mode, click on any Sim and select NRaas -> Master Controller:

Now select Household:

And then Family Funds:

Type in the amount you want to adjust by (in my case, -6305), and then press Enter. All done!

I think this is much more convenient.

Now the second level is beginning to be functional for more than just storage. After building a bit more of it, my daily item purchase is a bunk bed for Barbara and Charles (who have just become children - the other three have just become toddlers). Bunk beds are one of the few reasons to play with Generations active; they are very space efficient and can be shared amongst siblings that are not necessarily friends with each other. I have Barbara and Charles working on their Logic skills (of course they got a 3 point bump from the toddler books that they read).

I am "hot cribbing" the triplets - I have staggered their sleep cycles so that three of them can share the two cribs. In fact I can handle four with two cribs, which will mean that the last baby (Gabrielle) should be able to sleep in a crib sometimes even as an infant.

As Tuesday morning dawns, I have the adults, toddlers, and infant on the first floor, and the kids playing chess on the second:

The transition from a family with mostly infants/toddlers to a family with mostly children is in some ways easier, in others harder. It's easier in that children require much less attention than toddlers (infants don't require much either); set up a chess set and that's two of them sorted, for example (and all the rest can watch the other two play). But it's harder in that you now have to abide by feeding restrictions - with Culinary still in effect, you can really only feed any Sim once per day. This is not really an issue with adults because most days they will get fed at work. While kids get fed at school, until you lift Symphonic and restore Summer you'll miss almost every day of school due to a snow day.

It is the calm before the storm right now; 3 toddlers and an infant are easy enough to handle, and two children are easy enough to feed. But soon, it will be 5 and then 6 children. Let's tackle that next time.