How to age up in Sims 4

The Sims 4 is all about watching your characters have fun, bizarre, or terrifying experiences throughout their lives. A Sim’s life changes significantly with each life stage, so aging up your characters is crucial for painting the entire picture. Here’s how to age up Sims in The Sims 4.

How to age up in The Sims 4

There are three main ways to age up your Sims in The Sims 4:

1. Bake a birthday cake and blow out the candles.
2. Wait for the Sim to age naturally.
3. Use cheats to change their life stage.

If your Sim is a newborn, you can also select their bassinet and age them immediately without waiting for a birthday. That way, if you want to skip right to infancy, you won’t have to wait through the first few days of the Sim’s life.

Baking a birthday cake

One of the easiest and quickest ways to age up your Sims in The Sims 4 is to bake a birthday cake and have them blow out the candles, taste the frosting, or make a wish. These actions automatically age up your Sim, even if it isn’t their birthday.

However, you can also wait until the Sim’s birthday before planning a birthday party to make things more exciting. To do this, head into your in-game phone, choose social, and pick plan a social event before arranging your birthday party. Upon doing this, you can make it a tiered event, allowing you to obtain rewards for reaching gold. While you’re not required to do this to age up your Sims, it makes for an interesting experience, especially if you’ve never hosted a party.

Wait until your Sim ages up

Over time, your Sims will naturally age up, even if you don’t bake a cake or host a birthday party. The game will remind you to do both things, but if you ignore the notifications, your Sims will age gradually. They’ll be sad if you miss their birthday, though, so be prepared for that.

There are two main ways to make the aging process faster:

• Reduce your Sim lifespans through Settings > Game Options > Gameplay > Sim Lifespan
• Play other households and enable auto aging for Unplayed Households

If you get tired of playing the same household and waiting for them to age, you can reduce their lifespans or swap to another household before returning. That way, by the time you return, some of your Sims will be slightly older and, in some cases, may skip a lifespan or two. Just be careful while doing this, as elder Sims may pass away while you’re focusing on another household.

Use age up cheats

Lastly, you can use cheats to change your Sims, including aging them or reverting to previous lifespans. Below are the steps to enabling cheats in The Sims 4:

1. Open your cheat menu
   • PC: Ctrl + Shift + C
   • Mac: Cmd + Shift + C
   • PlayStation: L1 + L2 + R1 + R2
   • Xbox: LT + LB + RT + RB
2. Type in Testingcheats True
3. Type in cas.fulleditmode
4. Open a Sim’s debug menu and select Modify in CAS
   • PC: Shift + Click
   • Mac: Shift + Click
   • PlayStation: O + X
   • Xbox: A + B

Now, whenever you select a Sim and open their debug menu, you’ll be able to modify them in the Create-a-Sim menu and change their life stage. Unlike the birthday cake or waiting naturally, you can also age down your Sims through this menu, allowing you to relive the Sim’s life again if you wish.