I'm really confused about how this timer works. When I got home from work yesterday, I wanted my newly married couple to have another child. The husband is "not really" when it comes to having children and wife is "would be nice". I got them to do the baby dance, and they do argue about it before agreeing. A few times in a row they failed, so I quickly repeated the process by reloading my back up saved game files until they finally had a fruitful copulation.

I was doing some other things on the computer and left the game running in the background. Four hours later, I saw that their new girl running around and at 2 years of age. I wanted to have them have one more baby before I go to bed myself. So I waited no longer than an hour I think, and when their daughter was still 2 years old, they had another successful baby dance and a boy.

At this point it's rather late at night for me. I shut down the game and go to bed. 8 hours or so later I loaded the game. The boy is 4 years old, and his older sister is 6. I figured more than enough time surely had passed, so I got the couple together to have another child, and I was surprised when I got the "It is too soon" message from them.

Does the timer cease counting down if the game is turned off or is there some random fluctuation that determines how long it will be? I thought this game would continue even when turned off. After all they age when the game is turned off and not paused, so why wouldn't timer count down on the off game too?

Although I have seen posts to the contrary, I have found that the first time I try for a baby after a previous child, I get the "too soon" message. It doesn't matter if the youngest child is 2 or 12--if it is the first time they have tried since that one's birth, it seems to be "too soon".

So I have gotten in the habit of having them try right after mom finishes nursing the previous child to get that "too soon" thing out of the way. I am guessing the timer starts once you do that initial try after the previous child. As for how much longer before it is no longer too soon, well that depends on the desire for children, could be 15 mins, could be an hour or more.

Again, this is just the results of my experience with the game. I have seen posts by others that have different responses.

Hmm...interesting observation Jenny. Your observations seem to gel with my own. There were also a few times in which I left the game running over night while I slept or was at work, and they claimed it was still too soon despite a lot of time passing. I'll try to do it right after the mother is nursing, but if she stops nursing while I'm asleep or at work, there's not much I can do about it.