My experience suggests the former 
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Went in for a dental cleaning at 35w4d. Not only was it extremely uncomfortable to be laying down in the dental chair, I literally had a blood clot come out of my gums from how mad they were about the plaque-scraping! Oy. I recommend getting your cleaning before 7mo and then at 3mo postpartum to avoid this.
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You are pregnant again??? OMG congrats cute lil family
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Thank you!! But mostly I’m glad to be SO CLOSE to never being pregnant again 
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OMG I didn’t realize we were expecting within a month of each other!
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Fucking snot. And saliva. They are just making the nausea and shit worse. WHY. Body you don’t need these things. Please stop.
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2 key things I’d like information on, there is nothing out very little that i can find so far. Which is probably why i don’t know the answers already.
1 is how to slow labour. My 4.5hr labour was great, the 2hr was too fast. Everything online is about how to speed it up. Which i totally get. But apparently the quick ones are at least 10% which seems like enough women that it would be useful to have the other perspective?! I found “here are potential complications”, and “fast labour is nothing to be afraid of” both of which were useless to me.
2 is how and when to do mixed feeding with formula. At least this one I’ve eyeballed and decided to wing it. I’ve breastfed 2 babies successfully so I’m not at risk of my milk not coming in, but so many people do it so why is all the info assuming you are either weaning off or trying to switch to straight breastfeeding?!
My plan is to wait until we get home from hospital and introduce a bottle a day straight away (likely day 3). That gives time for milk to come in and the horrible baby blues nonsense, and then someone else can give a feed while i sleep in my own bed.
But there should be much clearer info for first time parents. My internet searching might just be shit right now, so if anyone’s got resources - yes please!
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Both my babies were in the NICU initially, so fed by not-me right from the start. They used donor milk since I wasn’t producing much yet, but preemie boi actually got a “supermilk” of formula added to breastmilk. “Combo feeding” is a search term you can try, though both these pages feel more regimented than you probably need as an experienced mum.
https://www.babylist.com/hello-baby/how-to-combo-feed
A few thoughts from my go-rounds:
- I forget, have you formula fed before? My babies didn’t mind room temp formula so we just didn’t warm those bottles which saved a buttload of time and hassle. We did use a warmer for pumped milk from the fridge.
- You might want to have a small manual pump around in case, eg, you skip a feed and get too engorged.
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This is helpful!
I haven’t formula fed before! Both bubs were exclusively breastfed, allergic to dairy and neither would take a bottle or a dummy. This was not good for anyone’s mental health. (I also have the fun of the lil oxytocin boost of let-down sometimes giving me dysphoric milk ejection reflex, ie i feel sudden depression instead of happy).
So i know we’ll be starting on non-dairy formula and i need tips and tricks on how to make a dummy stay in (i think i just waited too long with the other 2?)
A hand pump just in case is a good idea.
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This term should help sooo much.
And also - these pages are extra helpful because I am not the one who is gonna be giving the formula! So having it nice and clear for all caregivers will be very helpful, i think once we discuss our method I will print it out and we can tape it to the wall near the baby feeding stuff.
(In… 7 months lol)
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I had an experienced LD nurse and an experienced doula both tell me to just go to the hospital if I ever felt the baby would be born that day (because I did get the feeling with each). Have you had the same doctor with both? They might have tips, but generally I think slowing is difficult/dangerous. Which is fun because you could also apply that to giving birth in a hospital parking lot.
For combo feeding I think a week is more standard than 3 days, but it’s up to you. I was just told how to make it and feed it properly and then just introduced it while all the available info was very silly about it. At that point your body is still building it’s rhythm so I’d say don’t pump and your body will learn baby magically doesn’t need milk between 9am and 12 or whatever. Mine were cluster feeders so an hour off was so so good.
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We waited a week to introduce a bottle and I wouldn’t wait that long again in retrospect. We waited longer to have formula in the bottle and it was too late and very stressful when Pipsqueak refused it as my milk supply tanked.
A good friend did 3 weeks of breast milk mostly with 1 formula bottle a day and then switched to every other bottle being formula. I stayed with her for. Week when baby was six weeks old and it was working really well for her. She had a baby brezza which was amazing if you are going to be making formula bottles in a regular basis.
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Amazing! So I formalize my vote to yes as soon as Ducky gets home!
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Some babies just don’t like pacifiers. The cuckoo didn’t take to one, she is a dedicated thumb sucker.
Does nondairy formula come in a ready-to-feed version? I don’t have experience with that or of course with the Australian system. I used RTF with the cuckoo when she was a newborn because trying to sterilize the powder seemed like waaaaay too much work. (And I used it at my mom’s house because they have chemically softened well water that used to give BB the runs.) I didn’t sterilize it once she was past the newborn stage.
I combo fed the cuckoo from a pretty early age and I would say my milk supply lasted about as long as it did with the children whom I did not deliberately combo feed, which is to say about 9 months or so. I come on strong with the milk and then it goes poof later on.
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If you go the Baby Brezza route, some people have reported that the recommended settings aren’t always accurate. Probably worth keeping an eye on if you start with a newborn.
Fast labor is totally foreign to me, but my SIL just delivered in 26 minutes (!!!) and said she felt like the fast labor caused tearing. So maybe pelvic floor stretching is something to research or asking your providers about?
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Congratulations! (And good luck 
)
The ExclusivelyPumping subreddit is very active and actually very pro-combo feeding/whatever works. Although the resources shared by Fern seem very comprehensive.
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I did a bit of early formula combo-feeding with Chickadee while my milk was coming in (terrible latch + we wanted to make sure her blood sugars were stable, since I had GD), and she had a formula a few other times, primarily when I was early postpartum and had to take painkillers for a stitch release surgery.
We did breastfeeding + pumping for about a month and then switched to exclusive pumping because of the aforementioned terrible latch.
So, here if you want to chat any of that. I think Fern has some great resources posted above too.
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We did basically this! Egg tart was a bit premature so needed some formula supplementation right away. We just kept up with it and had mr. flan feed him his overnight feed so I could sleep in until I needed to pump and pump separately. Some babies will have no problem with this. The advice was to use a slow nipple, do paced feeding and try feeding him on his side so he doesn’t develop a strong preference for bottles and refuse the boob. We sometimes gave formula and sometimes pumped milk in the bottles.
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You are all an absolute wealth of solid information and help. I have read this all 3 times so far.
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