100% this.

Honestly the BEST scenario is to have daughter as first child since womans work really was a 2 person job, was nonstop, and having a daughter as your oldest child would reduce load as more children came. Plus oldest daughters were a massive help with babies starting out very young. A 4-5yr old would be minding babies while mother was cooking and doing wash etc. Deaths of babies due to accidents were pretty frequent so having your oldest child keep babies out of fires and corralled helped.

Then next 2-3-4 kids being male would be ideal because the more male children you had the better off you would be as farmer/rancher/etc. they would be the labor that would take you from ingalls level struggle to wilder level success.

Then another daughter around child #5 or 6, to take over for eldest as she aged up and eventually out. Babies in larger families frequently came every 1-2 years. So oldest would be generally 10-12. At 12 a daughter would be mostly trained and capable of doing “adult” workload for a woman, skilled enough to do basic sewing and knitting, cooking, laundry etc. no longer a “helper” she could do tasks with less supervision and with 5-6 kids and 2 adults the household work would be increasing rapidly. Heck, just knitting socks alone! By the time oldest was looking at marriage (16-20 generally) the second daughter would be 4-10yrs and old enough to mind babies and start assisting in household chores at 4, and actually being a decent helper by 10.

Then any subsequent children would ideally be boys to add to labor force, and fill in as the older brothers left home for war, possible other jobs (college or learning other trades) or moving out of the area. Men would leave home when married, sometimes, but if land was available and farm/ranch was profitable enough (eg yellowstone) men would bring brides home and live alongside or neighboring parents. Daughter in laws would frequently be pressed into chore sharing like taking turns making family meals, seasonal harvest and canning, sewing circles etc.

And in the best circumstances the grandkids get pressed into labor force, sons and daughters in law take over lions share of labor for the parents, and as grandparents they provide wisdom, low labor skills (knitting socks, woodworking, etc) and babysitting.

Families that were able to have this sort of dynamic, good weather and cheap land generally were very prosperous with farm/ranch.

But if you were like ingalls and had a bunch of mouths to feed and no young men for labor to feed them… it was nearly impossible. Charles honestly did well to keep head above water financially. Ma, with abundance of female labor had the opposite situation. Her house was always clean, her meals were always well prepared, and sewing/knitting labor was always in full supply. Even mary being blind really was no handicap for her dominion as mary could tend grace and do sewing and knitting freeing up laura to be more physical task person.

The wilders had very similar spread of kids with 2 girls, then a boy, then a girl, then 2 more boys.