Extreme Dyschezia?

[Edinlady]

New mum here.
My 4 w/o started grunting and straining a bit a few weeks ago. The health visitor reassured me it was probably dyschezia, and this was normal and soon he will grow out of it.
However, over the last few days this has got much worse. He's pretty much grunting and straining and sometimes crying most of the time. Even after he has passed poo or gas, he continues to strain and gets quite upset with it.
The worst is when he is laid down on his back to sleep. He has about five minutes of peaceful sleep and then the noises and straining starts. When he's napping during the day this just means he's only sleeping short bursts as he wakes himself up. At night it's just as bad and makes it really difficult for us to get any sleep because of the noises.
I have no idea what to do. I tried doing bicycle legs and rubbing his tummy, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But as I say there is no relief even when he has a bowel movement.
It just feels so extreme. Is this normal Dyschezia? Or does anybody have any ideas of how I can help him?
Today he only got about 4 hours sleep in naps and 3 hours in the night. Which then also affects his feeding as he falls asleep very quickly on the breast.
I also have never got him to go down for a sleep without feeding him and then he falls asleep. He definitely feeds on the breast for a comfort, but then I worry if that is adding to his bowel problems. I have to use nipple shields and wonder if he's getting too much air in that way?
I'm feeling completely overwhelmed, so very tired and at a loss of what to do.
Any advice or experience from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

That sounds pretty normal. My son was extremely fussy around that age. Some newborns are very very hard work.

Re the nipple shields, have you tried weaning off them? They're meant to be a temporary measure.

Thank you, good to know it's just normal and hopefully we will be out of it sooner rather than later.
I can't wait to see the back of the nipple sheilds. His latch is getting better day by day, so hopefully soon.

I've got a noisy newborn too. He's 8 weeks and has been grunty since birth. They haven't found a reason he's just a noisy baby. I was breastfeeding him at an appointment with my consultant and she marvelled at how grunty he was even mid feed. He's awful when lying down. He's quiet if he is in my arms so that's where he stays most of the time. I can hold him and get him in a deep enough sleep to go down at night quietly but this takes at least 45 minutes. He them can do 1-4h after that it's just easier to hold him in bed. We have noticed in the last week or so that he's getting a bit quieter. We had his 8 week check on Monday and the GP commented on it and asked if he had a cold and I said he'd always been like this. She said his chest was clear and the noise is coming from the top of his respiratory tract.