The fun thing about playing Stardew Valley is the fact that it is not limited to just farming and gathering resources alone. Instead, it is as if you are living a real-life in the virtual world. Since this is a story-based game, you are also responsible for the decisions you will make in-game. This includes your decision of having kids.
The player has the freedom of choosing between having a child or not, but you are only limited to having two children in one household. But before having a child, you must first look for a partner candidate and get married. Since several games are already supporting same-sex couples, you can also choose the same gender character to be married to your character.
Before we proceed on how to have kids in Stardew Valley, let’s first talk about the prerequisites of having one.
Table of Contents
1. Level Up Your Friendship Hearts
All NPCs have friendship hearts that you can increase in number by doing several choices of tasks. Remember that you can only marry a character who is single – it is indicated in the social tab whether the character is single or married.
Once you have met your ideal partner, the first thing you must do is reach eight friendship hearts by doing specific tasks. When you already achieved the eight friendship hearts, it stops increasing. But to get married, you have to reach and maintain 10 friendship hearts.
These are the things you must do in order to reach and maintain the required number of friendship hearts:
- Go to Pierre’s shop. By a bouquet and give it to the person you are courting.
- Go to the Old Mariner on rainy days. Buy a Mermaid’s Pendant and give it to your marriage candidate to propose. Remember that the Old Mariner will not sell you the pendant if you don’t have a 10 friendship heart with anyone in the town
After completing these, you can proceed to marry your marriage candidate.
2. Get Married
After you successfully propose to your partner, three days after that will automatically be your wedding day. After you two are happily married, your partner will appear on your porch, or inside the house. The game will also go on normally as it used to, but you must consider your partner’s number of hearts. After marriage, your partner will have a maximum of 14 friendship hearts. But whenever there is no contact between the two of you, the friendship hearts decay by 20 points per day.
3. Prepare Your Home
Before you get married, there is still one important requirement and that is to level up your farmhouse at least once and build a nursery in your house. It is important to have a crib ready in your nursery. This is also a prerequisite for buying the Mermaid’s Pendant from the Old Mariner.
And those are the steps on how to have kids in Stardew Valley.
Types of Children
Just like how it is in real life, a family can also have either a biological or adopted child. But having a child doesn’t come as surprise.
After getting married for at least 7 days, there is always a 5% chance that your partner will ask you each day if you already want to have kids. It’s up to you if you will accept or reject it. And if you are curious about what gender your children will be – your first child will either be a girl or a boy which is randomly selected, while the second child is the opposite gender of the first child. There is no chance of getting two boys or two girls in Stardew Valley.
Adopted Children
Since Stardew Valley supports same-sex marriages as well, it is also possible to adopt children since this is the only way for them to have their own children.
If you managed to maintain at least 10 friendship hearts with your partner, there is also a 5% chance that your partner will ask you every night about having an adopted child. Once you agreed, the adoption proper will happen in 14 days. Following 14 days of waiting, the adoption agency will deliver the child to your home at night.
Biological Children
Having a biological child is actually almost the same as how you can adopt a child. You also have to maintain at least 10 friendship hearts with your partner, so that there is always a 5% chance that your partner will ask you of having a baby. Once you are ready and have already accepted your partner’s invitation of having a child, you also have to wait for 14 Stardew Valley days. After 14 days of waiting, the baby will appear in the crib in the nursery.
Stages of Growth of Biological Children
As for how it is in real life, parents must also watch how their children grow. Here in Stardew Valley, there are four stages of child growth. You can clearly observe this if you have a biological child. You might wonder why there are only four stages – it is because children in Stardew valley stop growing once they reach the toddler stage.
Stage 1
During this stage, there is not much change or interaction you are able to have with your child. If you wish to interact with the baby, the result will only show a note that says [your child’s name] is sleeping.
Stage 2
When your child has already grown up to this stage, it is already the time when you can already make a connection with him or her. Upon interacting with the child, the animation will show that your player is tossing the baby in the air. This interaction increases your relationship level with each other.
Stage 3
As the baby grows and reaches this level, he or she will be able to learn a few motor skills such as crawling. So, you should expect the baby to crawl around the house and play with the toys sometimes. Since this stage starts to explore by going from one place to another, there are instances that he or she will be stuck in between furniture. One thing to know as well is when the night comes, the baby will be automatically put back in the crib and will not be available for interaction.
Stage 4
This is the last stage of your children’s growth and they are expected to dash here and there. You can also freely interact with them by clicking using the right mouse button. Doing this can also increase the relationship level with each other.
How to Dismiss Kids
There are also some sad parts in playing Stardew Valley such as the fact of dismissing children. If ever you reach the point of getting exhausted with the responsibilities of having children, you can come to the Witch’s Hut, and interact with the Dark Shrine of Selfishness. Once you offer a Prismatic Shard, your children will be turned into doves and will be gone from your farm as if they never existed before.
If you happen to dismiss a child wearing a hat, this hat will appear in the Lost and Found tomorrow morning. Dismissing a child also opens the possibility of your partner asking you again to have children.
How many kids can you have in Stardew Valley
You can have 2 kids in Stardew Valley. This is the maximum amount you are allowed to have.
