Whan I got my 3rd hut built, I made all my ladies eager parents and my population shot from 70 to 105. And the food supply dropped precipitously - had to decree more farmers.

Then when that baby boom finished nursing, they started eating a lot but not yet working, and I had to put every available adult on farmer duty. The food supply was under 1000 and falling.

And now that all those kids are working adults, the food supply has soared to over 50,000. So my farmers have been told to learn medicine.

They are all going to die about the same time and I am going to let the population drop to 80 or so and try to get the birthrate more uniform. Meanwhile no one is dying and no babies can be born..

Moral: Best not to have too many babies all at once if you want your food supply to remain stable..

Better make sure you don't have anyone programmed for parenting, or your population with stay at its max, as a new baby will be conceived as soon as someone dies and makes room for them.

Right. All ladies except one are programmed for medicine. When 30 or so all die at once, she won't be able to keep up and the population will drop.

I'm not sure about this, but even though your ladies are not programmed for parenting, if any of your men are, I think they will go after them anyway.

None of my men are. I let the ladies do the choosing.

I had a similar baby boom effect in my game, too. The main problem was that there was a twelve-year gap before anyone died; no babies could be born so I had only one kid at one stage. She reached 10 before a two-year-old appeared to keep her company. I didn't have any problems with food, though. Things are a lot more stable now, with a range of kids of all ages, although the population is still at max.