How are they doing it?! :-)

Hello!

I am new to this group and very glad to have found it. I've had a
wonderful experience with my first African cichlids - I have a 44 gal
pentagon tank established about a year ago and a Malawi setup with a
large electric blue, a medium aulocanthus?, a synodatus catfish
(Tanganyika), and a brood of yellow labiochromis. Everybody seems to
get along well with each other, which I know is not always the case.

I've had tropical freshwater fish before but have never had them breed.
I have a pair of yellow labs, however, that are breeding like bunnies!
These two have produced four babies at four different times, and I
can't quite figure out how they are doing it!

I see the male dig out this cave by removing the gravel from around and
underneath his favorite rock (his turf). And I see the female lower
jaw sort of expand into a pouch, but I've never seen any eggs. I'll
just notice, quite by chance a little later, that there is a little
baby yellow lab swimming around! :-)

None of the other fish in the tank have acted aggressively toward the
babies and now the oldest one is about half grown. The mating pair
seem (to me) to be having just one offspring at a time. But everyone I
have talked to about has said the other fish are just eating the
others. But I just don't see this happening. The baby fish is
definitely small when I first see it, but it is not teeny teeny.

I guess my first question is, does anyone know how labs breed and is my
scenario consistent with that? And second, could they be creating just
one baby at a time or am I missing something?

Thanks so much for your help!

Peter