Not sure when or how we ended up like this but I am bfing my ds (5 wks old) what seems like all the time. He has been astonishingly grumpy/colicky since the age of about 2.5 wks old and because every other mum who saw him crying said 'he's hungry' - rooting etc, I've been feeding him every time I've seen him do the classic rooting stuff and crying. He's now on the breast for sometimes an hour at a time, sometimes more, and often starts again 15-20 minutes after finishing that. When he goes back on shortly after an hour-long feed he does do the proper sucking/swallowing for 5 mins or so, then what looks like comfort suckling, then he sort of wakes up a bit and does a bit more proper sucking... This is all day now, except when he is having a nap, whereas before he used to do it just in the evenings (cluster feeding?). He does do really well at night with the help of an EBM bottle before bedtime, and is sleeping from 9.30-2.30, feeds, then 3.30-6ish. He's also putting on weight.
His latch has never been that great so I'm wondering whether he's finding it increasingly hard to get all the milk he wants (a bf counsellor told me that babies have to work harder after the early days to get at it?). We started off feeding about every 2 hours or so but it's degenerated to this gradually. Any advice?