Restless and insatiable

I gave birth to a 4.5 kg son on June 1st, and from the very beginning, he’s been restless. He flails his arms and legs excessively, and after a week, we started swaddling.

Structure is very important to him, and I try to maintain it. Over time, we adapted to our 'difficult' baby and started enjoying those little nice moments.

But every day feels like reinventing the wheel. He’s taking Forte from Kruidvat with JBPM, but he seems insatiable and still brings up his feeds. He’s also drooling more.

Now he’s on 5 feeds of 180 ml each, but he seems to need more, which isn’t possible. I have to split this into 2 bottles per feed; otherwise, he doesn’t drink enough and gets hungry faster. I try to keep him calm after the bottle, but he kicks his legs a lot, flails his arms, hits his face, my face, and he also 'headbangs' a lot. I’ve already had a few good bonks on the head.

Giving the bottle is also a drama; he keeps wiggling and reaching for the bottle, then suddenly pulls his head away, then a hand comes in all at once, and he starts kicking.

He’s swaddled for every nap, but even then, he still protests and kicks his legs.

He now weighs 6.5 kg, so at the Child Health Centre, they don’t really have much to add, and the GP says he’s reacting healthily....

Who recognizes this? Who else has tips? He does sleep, minus the 10,000 times we have to walk to soothe him, but his restlessness when he’s awake is so frustrating.