Straining and grunting ALL the time! Help

My 7 week old has been straining and grunting since he was 3 weeks or so. At his last 2 doctor appointments I brought this up and his pediatrician said it’s normal and that babies just make a big deal out of pooping. But he’s still doing it and it’s affecting his sleep and when he eats. He does it every 5-10 min in his sleep and it will wake him up sometimes which means I have to try and put him down again. 😩 Sometimes he does it while eating and he will grip down on my nipple and squirm and it hurts! He does it as soon as I lay him on a flat surface & he raises he legs really high when it happens.

Is this normal??

We’ve tried tummy massages, bicycle kicks, knee to elbow, gripe water, mylicon... nothing helps. I’ve seen him pushing to poop (and successfully poop) before and it’s different than this. He has at least 4 poop diapers a day (ebf) and they’re mushy and yellow sometimes green.