Hi OP,
I’m so sorry your going through this, I too am in Lancs and I know that the services haven’t been great.
My first DC suffered terribly with constipation and it was just awful, things got much easier when she reached 6 months and I could give her foods to help her go. Your baby is 5 months and I know weaning and food probably seems like ages off just yet, especially when your struggling as you are and every day feels like it lasts forever. My eldest never got diagnosed with anything reflux/cmpa etc she was just prone to being constipated and it does and can make for a very fussy, uncomfortable, unhappy baby. Once we could start foods we did lots of fruit purée and pouches which helped lots. Laculose (forget the exact spelling) GP’s can prescribe it, but you can also buy it, helped if things we really bad. Other things that helped was a nice warm bath and then I would massage her back and belly with baby oil after bath and this would often get things moving. My youngest also suffers with constipation and even now as a toddler I have to make sure they drink plenty of fluids and keep a supply of fruit, especially raisins which are easy to eat to keep them regular. If I don’t do this we can have a right miserable time of it and it can be just awful.
You have my every sympathy, this can be so hard especially when you are going through it alone. I know like you feel like you are failing but you are not!! Not everyone gets an easy baby, and even easy babies can still be hard work. The good news is, is that as awful as things feel at the moment I promise you that it doesn’t last forever, and it WILL pass!!!
Now as for getting help, yes it is absolutely shit especially at the moment and it really shouldn’t be so hard to access the help you need. Please please don’t let yourself be ignored, please don’t let yourself be dismissed, you absolutely deserve to get the help you need. I know it’s hard to feel like you have any fight left especially when you are already so exhausted but you NEED help and you need support. You ring your GP, your health visitor, and do not be shy about kicking up an absolutely huge fuss until you get seen. I totally understand that you shouldn’t have to do this (it really should be as simple as just asking, and it’s sad that it’s not) but sometimes those who shout loudest get heard, so don’t you be afraid to shout for what you need.
This will get better, this will not be your life forever even though I know it feels like it. Before I had my first baby I had wanted her so much, after a loss years before in a different relationship I felt so lucky to finally be pregnant and having a much wanted baby. Then my baby was born and I expected to be in a haze of newborn love and happiness. I got the biggest shock to my system when things were not at all as I imagined. I often wondered what on Earth I had done to my life, and I felt incredibly guilty for not being as happy as I thought I should be, for not being like all the other mothers, except now I realise plenty of other mothers felt just as I had felt and that it is in fact totally normal!!! I realise that what I had imagined ( embarrassingly I had thought I would have this lovely happy settled baby who would be happy with a cuddle and then would quietly sit in her Moses basket while I did lovely homely things like make jam. I would read her lots of books and she would sit any look at the pictures....haha baby did not enjoy the story and in fact preferred to try and eat said book and then toss it across the room repeatedly!!! Then we would do bath and bed time routine when she would settle to sleep after a story and a song and then I would go downstairs and read my book with a nice cup to tea, except baths often resulted in screams, and as for laying her down to sleep with a story....just nope! She had to be rocked in my arms for what felt like hours and then I had to try and put her down without waking her up, it was not unlike trying to lay down and unexploded nuclear warhead without setting it off!!) I was deluded in my vision of what motherhood was, what it would feel like, and in fact just how hard it would be. The good news, that terribly fussy baby who had me on my knees with exhaustion is now a wonderful polite and lovely teen who now makes me a cup of tea and sends me up to bed for an early night and is just so wonderful I can’t believe my luck. If you had told me back when she was a baby that we would be where we are now I wouldn’t have believed you, but here we are and she is just amazing, so again I promise you as much as it might feel awful and terrible right now and that this is forever, it’s not forever, it does get better, it does get easier and this will pass, it honestly will. 