Get an in-depth look at features coming with The Sims 4 Infants Update!

At the last Behind The Sims Summit in October of 2022, we found out that a new life stage called infants would be coming to The Sims 4 in “early 2023.” We were shown a very brief clip of an infant crawling across the floor and then being picked up by their caregiver. Since then, The Sims Team has been tight-lipped about infants. We had no more information about them for quite a while. Naturally, this left Simmers wondering if and when we would ever see more of the infants.

Today’s Behind The Sims livestream did not disappoint when it comes to infants! We got tonnes of new information and lots of new footage. The Sims Team even spoiled us with behind-the-scenes development for infants! We have all of the information shared today right here for you!

When are we getting infants in The Sims 4?

Before today, the only thing we had to go on was “early 2023.” This likely meant the first quarter of 2023, so anytime between January and March of 2023. We had nothing more specific than that. Today, we finally have a date!

Simmers can expect infants to arrive to The Sims 4 on March 14th, 2023! So mark your calendars and get your legacy saves ready for lots of cuteness in March!

Infants in CAS

Infants will be fully customizable Sims in CAS with many of the same clothing, hair, and physical feature options as older Sims. The livestream showed off a variety of tops, bottoms, full body outfits, and shoes for infant Sims. Infants will also be able to wear cute hats, sunglasses, and some other accessories.

Simmers will even be able to customize their teeth! Choose between no teeth, tiny baby teeth, or just a couple new teeth poking through the gums. What’s more exciting? We were shown birth marks in CAS for infants! We will be able to apply birth marks to different areas of an infant’s face. No word yet on whether birth marks will be made available for older Sims, too, but it would make sense. Not everyone’s birth marks disappear as they age.

Infants will be propped up in a small inflatable infant seat while in CAS. When editing the back of the infant, they will crawl to pull themselves up over the seat so the player can see all parts of the infant better.

Infants will have their own set of adorable baby traits; however, we didn’t get to see exactly what those traits are and how they function. It’s nice to know that infants will have their own unique personalities, though.

Infants in Gameplay

Most of what we know about infants in Live Mode comes from in-game footage shown during the livestream. As always, take these clips with a small grain of salt; we have been misled by promotional footage in the past. Still, we’re pretty confident that all of the following info is accurate and will be a feature of infants in The Sims 4.

Sims will be able to breastfeed their infants just like they currently do with babies! We can see a Sim breastfeeding her infant in the gameplay footage. This is wonderful to see and a great step forward in normalizing breastfeeding!

Sims will be able to spoonfeed their infants in a high chair from what looks like a baby food jar. There is a hilarious clip of an infant with food smeared all over their face opening their mouth for a bite. Well, The Sims Team certainly captured how messy infants are!

Of course, those infants will need cleaning up after those messy meals so Sims can also bathe their infants in the bathtub. Infants will sit in a special infant bath seat while in the bathtub. There is a very cute clip of a Sim booping her infant’s nose while giving them a bath.

Messy Infants!

Sims can also play peek-a-boo with their infants in The Sims 4 but the infant might not always find it as amusing as their caregiver. The infant in the livestream looked quite annoyed with the adult Sim’s silly game. Speaking of annoyed infants, they can be pretty mischievous, too! We saw an infant bite their caregiver’s finger in the livestream! And yep, they can pee on your Sims, too, making both infant and adult filthy. How realistic!

The developers talked a lot about mobility with infants, too. Infants will have clumsy, overexaggerated movements since they’re just starting to develop motor skills. They will fall backwards onto their bums a lot, roll around on the floor, and lie on their backs. Caregiver Sims will have a lot of mobility when it comes to carrying infants, too. They will be able to sit or stand while holding an infant, carry them places, and can even hand an infant to another Sim. They can read to infants and burp them, too.

The Sims Team made sure to include interaction between infants, toddlers, children, and pets! Dogs and cats will interact with infants for players who own Cats & Dogs. Toddlers and children will also be able to interact with their infant siblings.

Infant Objects in The Sims 4

Along with the Sims 4 infants, we caught a glimpse of several new infant-themed items. The playpen seen in the first clip is seen again in the livestream. There is a variety of cute nursery décor, such as a box of wet wipes, wicker baskets filled with towels and stuffed animals, and a wall shelf with baby books displayed in it. We also get a pretty good look at an infant crib with a hanging baby mobile above it.

There are lots of new toys we haven’t seen before. An infant can be seen playing with dolls inside some kind of playhouse. There’s a rattle-like toy and some other new toybox toys. We can see an infant playing with the base game toddler blocks, too.

Unfortunately, what we didn’t see were baby carriers, strollers, or changing tables. This doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t be in the game. It just means we did not see them in the livestream today.

Sims 4 Infants: Behind-The-Scenes

The Sims Team shared a lot of info with us about how they brought infants to life in The Sims 4! We got to see a lot of early development footage and concept art!

Deciding how to display infants in CAS was a challenge at first; the infants went through many different design concepts in CAS to figure out how to display them in a way that was realistic but also easy for Simmers to customize. We even got to see a hilarious photo of some of the scarier bugs involved in the process.

One of the animators talked about how she tried to make sure the infants moved with a sense of intense focus and purpose. Infants in real life are just starting to explore how their bodies move and work, so small tasks require lots of concentration. We were shown an early concept of an infant climbing up a step to showcase this.

Ear-splitting screeching? No thank you!

The audio director shared some of the challenges in getting the infants’ voices just right. They needed to sound cute and endearing, even when they were screaming and crying. Crying babies sounding cute probably isn’t too realistic but this is still a video game. People play it to have fun, not to listen to the same ear-splitting child screeches that they hear in their everyday lives. So it makes sense that The Sims Team didn’t want the infants to sound grating or annoying when they cried.

As for character creation, the senior character designer discussed how it was important to him to make sure that players were totally in control of their infants’ appearance. He wanted infants to be completely customizable from head to toe in their hair, clothes, accessories, and physical features. They have a wide number of CAS options because of this.

That wraps up everything we know about infants so far! As always, we will continue to share new information with you as it comes to light! If you missed the livestream today, you can check out the replay right here!

And for more Behind The Sims coverage, check out our full category!