If "Care for Self" Isn't Working for You

[oshizu]

When your sim leaves the home lot, the ability of other household members to "Care for Self" seems to have changed.
This negatively influences gameplay for simmers attempting the TenGen Townie Dynasty Challenge.

Yesterday, my Food Critic visited 3 restaurants to do reviews, leaving the house for roughly 8 hours.
When she got back, the rest of her household members' meters had all tanked, even though the adults were automatically set to "Care for Self."
Toddlers's needs had been completely neglected. Everyone's meters were between 0 and 20%.

There is a related thread on EA Answer HQ here: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Technical-Issues-PC/sims-care-for-self-not-working/td-p/6528739/highlight/true

I tested this twice today.
Test 1:
*New file with a new household of 4 young adults. I took one sim fishing, leaving the other 3 at home.
*When the 3 sims' needs fell below 50%, I was able to activate "Care for Self" by selecting "Tidy Up" then "Care for Self" again.
  (Other modes will also work but I want a non-obstrusive choice for the challenge I'm currently playing.)

Test 2:
*After a factory reset, I did another test with a different household in a another new file.
*The household: 2 YA parents, 1 teen, 1 child, 2 toddlers.
*One parent and the teen went first to Sylvan Glade for fishing (10 hrs) then to Desert Bloom Park (8 hrs). Both places shared similar results.
*The Tidy Up--> Care for Self trick worked for the left-behind YA, teen, and child but not for toddlers whose needs dropped to almost zero both times.
*Hiring a nanny, hiring a butler, hiring both a nanny and a butler didn't make that much difference. Sending the mother home made no difference.

Conclusion: Non-toddler household members can still be left at home for days at a time using the Tidy Up --> Care for Self trick.
                 Even if you feed, bathe, and put toddlers to bed before going out, they can't be left unattended indefinitely.
                 The toddlers' Care for Self mode works differently than that for other age stags.
Anothe workaround: Or you can do like @christinal3106 and just take the toddlers with you!

Do you know of another workaround that stays within the rules of the TenGen Townie Dynasty Challenge?
I would love to hear it! 

[Playalot]

Confirming that toddler care for self hasn't ever really worked. One way around it is to bring the toddler to the active lot when you see their needs are in the red, care for them then send them home again.

Can't help re 10gen rules as I'm not up-to-date on challenge rules.

[christinal3106]

I just wanted to elaborate and say that I didn't leave or take toddlers.  It was a teen, an adult, and 3 cats.