If you have the Parenthood pack, babies provide the biggest chunk of xp to leveling up the parenting skill in the game. In one day of having a baby and interacting with it, you build the relationship with the baby, and go up one level per every 4 interactions with it. It still annoys me that I can't select the baby and see what it needs/wants and that the baby can't do anything, but I finally have a reason not to immediately age babies up to toddlers. Especially for sims with the Super Parent aspiration, you can get the parenting skill up to level 4 in about 4 days and then age up the baby and be able to discipline without having to spam skill interactions while pregnant.

Once you get to the higher levels of Parenting Skill (I want to say about 8?), you do get an option to "Check what they need". I feel like a level or two prior to that, the babies start throwing up thought bubbles with an icon for their need (a bottle for Hunger, the Communication skill icon for Social, and a diaper for Hygiene), though I haven't kept a close enough eye on it to say with certainty when it shows up. Super Efficient Baby Care at level 9 or 10 is fantastic too. Deals with everything in one fell swoop.

I think what's frustrating for me as a player is that the crying animation is the same no matter what they need. IRL, babies make a huge variety of different sounds and cries and a baby that is hungry sounds different than a baby that needs a change or is lonely. It's not just that my sims don't know what to do, but I don't know what to do. In TS3 best babycare practice was to pick up the baby, feed it, hug it, change the diaper, and then put it down again. They needed to be fed and changed 3 or so times a day and topping up their social meter while you're at it kept them happy and could get you to full green really quickly.

Wow! Next time my sim gets abducted and ..... yeah.... and has a baby, he's gonna level up some skills for the Renaissance Sim aspiration before sending the little green screamers back to Sixam