Your Sims will experience major life milestones that will impact their relationships and careers.
These changes will affect your Sims only if you own Growing Together.
As EA explains:
Through Sims’ experiences and relationships, players will begin to encounter Milestones, which will provide a way of showing players their Sims’ current growth, as well as lifelong touchstones that continue to impact them as they age.
These include overcoming a career obstacle, getting let go from a job, having a midlife crisis, having the family move in and so much more.
Milestones show off the big events that happen in your Sims’ lives.
They’re available across all of the Sim ages.
As your Sims grow up and age, they continue to gain new milestones that are meaningful for that age.
During infancy, milestones revolve around gaining new motor skills to explore the world.
Motor skills are closely related to certain child aspirations. For example, to complete the Mind and Body aspiration, your child Sim needs to learn how to ride a bike.
After infancy, milestones are more about tracking important events in your Sims’ lives.
Think of milestones as a timeline of your Sim’s life.
When your Sim is an elder, you can look back at their milestone history and check all the things they’ve done.
Unlocking new milestones will give you some items that you can use to decorate your house. These unique items give your lot a sense of history.
For example, you can hang your Sims’ marriage certificate on the wall. You can also hang the school drawings that your kid made on their first day of school.
Some milestones can trigger regrets
Some milestones can trigger future regrets. If your Sim has a bladder failure for the first time, the First Bladder Failure milestone will mark that moment.
Needless to say, your Sim will suffer great embarrassment.
These unpleasant events may come back to your Sim’s memory when they’re autonomously thinking about various things or they’re near the place or person associated with that event.
These memories tend to have a lingering effect.
Sims will typically get a “That was embarrassing” buff unpleasant past events come back to their mind.
Milestone categories in The Sims 4
There are three main categories of Adult Milestones in The Sims 4:
- Firsts
- Life
- Social
Infant Milestones are divided into five categories:
- Fine Motor
- Gross Motor
- Firsts
- Social
- Life
When your Sim experiences their first ever fire, they’ll unlock the First Fire Milestone.
Some milestones are common across all age groups.
One such example is the First Visitor milestone that unlocks for infants, toddlers, and adults alike when someone outside their household visits them.
Track your infant’s progress with milestones
Infant milestones allow you to track your infant’s progress in a more specific way than a skill bar.
Basically, milestones track the way your Sims are growing up. They’re all about seeing how far your infant has come.
As infants unlock new milestones, the world opens up to them and they can use new interactions. They can do things with more objects and explore the world around them.
For example, an infant that can’t sit up is unable to explore foods on the high chair.
When an infant is able to lift their head for the first time, they’ll unlock the Lifted Head milestone.
When they roll over to their back, they’ll unlock the Roll Over to Back milestone.
Infants can’t roll over, sit up or lift their heads. Adult Sims need to take good care of them and help them build their motor skills.
By the way, there’s also the Pee on Caregiver milestone. You’ve been warned!
⇒ Quick Tip:
- The dotted milestone icon indicates what might be next for your infant.
The First Visitor milestone
If you get a random phone call from your boy, Kyle, let him come over to your place. This will unlock the First Visitor milestone.
Kyle is part of Growing Together’s temporary stay system. Random Sims will come to visit you and stay in your house for a few days.
Family friends may suggest coming over too.
Maybe they’re just missing you or are going through a tough time and need someplace to stay.
The dreaded midlife crisis
Adult Sims may experience a midlife crisis all of a sudden. They’ll face a lot of inner turmoil about their identity and life choices up until that moment.
Sims experiencing a midlife crisis will begin to question every aspect of their lives. They’ll also think more about elderhood and their own mortality.
Getting let go from a job
Getting let go from a job is one of the worst possible events in a Sim’s life, especially when you have a large family.
Getting fired without notification is even worse.
Of course, you can avoid this unfortunate event by pursuing a freelance career. Nobody can fire you when you’re your own boss.
Having the family move in
Seeing your in-laws moving into your house and taking possession of it can be quite disturbing.
But you can’t kick them out either, they’re your family.
Are you going to let them ruin your routine or show them who’s the boss?
How to use cheats to unlock milestones
There’s a new built-in pack cheat for Growing Together that allows you to instantly unlock milestones.
Click on one of your Sims, select the Pack Cheats option, and click on Expansion Packs. Then, select EP13: Growing Together and select the milestone you want to unlock.
Happy Simming!
Note: This guide was updated in March 2023 to include additional information about the Growing Together expansion pack.