Tummum I'd be if my dh behaved like that. You'll have to tell him that you really need his help, especially because you're heavily pregnant and find it physically hard and because once lo is there it'll be almost impossible to sort 2 toddlers while caring for a newborn without his imput. I'm lucky my dh does help out when he's at home. Seeing me on crutches has made him even more helpful than he already is.
As for dummies. I've got no real opinion on them, except that I don't like seeing bigger toddlers walking around with them all the time, you know not when they're sleeping. Personally I haven't given them to mine, I nearly with ds. But, I know this will sound weird, I got sort of jealous of the dummy and was scared he'd prefer it to my breasts and that I wouldn't be able to tell when he needed feeding, so I only gave it to him once or twice. This must sound a bit wacky, but that's really how I felt. Anyway, he ended up occasionally sucking his thumb, but stopped that naturally at about 6 months. Dd was just a dream of a baby and never needed anything. She was textbook: feed, put down, sleep. No crying inbetween!
ladyhelen I'm a bit the same with my FIL. We just keep it to general chit chat. If they phone it's always for dh and when dh isn't in the call doesn't tend to last more than 5mins. I'm sure your FIL would be happier if you dh calls him back instead.
I've always found bus fares in the UK quite expensive too, especially because a ticket is only valid on that certain route. Most places I've lived you buy a ticket and it's valid for e.g. 1h and you can change busses as much as you like in that time. Our ap used to take the bus with the dcs to school and that could easily amount up to £20 for 3 days if she had to take them and pick them up, at the same time she didn't have to take them enough for it to be cheaper to have a bus pass.