One of the unexpected benefits of running grapheneos is that shit like whatsapp can't cope without having play services available and, as such, doesn't really do real time notifications. It still checks in every now and then, but that's definitely bettee than it working "properly".
Actually... I was gonna complain about that exact thing. I miss messages constantly, even when they are hours ago. Sometimes they are really important.
Yea, it's a constant battle. FWIW - try getting the important people onto signal. I use molly client and it has its own mechanism to sync messages in real time, or at least close enough to real time that I haven't noticed.