Sleeplessness

The pattern of only sleeping while held continued for the next month.  The only time Opal would sleep for lengths of time would be in my arms, or in the Boppy pillow if I was next to her.  I lived on the couch.  Even in an extremely cold weather spell (night time lows were -18), I would pile the blankets on me lay back the recliner, and put the corner of the blanket over Opal as she lay next to me.  I think the first time I got more than a nap in my own bed was over two weeks after she was born, when Paul was going back to work and stayed up to work nights.  He stayed up and watched the Boppy.

At two months I started putting her in bed with us, which I hate to do.  Not because it is advised against, but because I feel like it sets up bad sleep habits - but at that point I was more worried about the fact that I hadn't had real sleep in 2 months; we'd worry about correcting the baby's sleep habits later.  At 3 months, I made her cry it out several nights in her own bed.  (She wouldn't give up.)  Then we went to a pattern of she would fall asleep, I would put her down, and she would wake up usually before I even finished brushing my teeth, and I would make her cry for 10 or 15 minutes, then pick her up and nurse her again, and she would sleep most of the night.  Then around 4 months, it's like a switch flipped, and she started staying asleep the first try sleeping 10 hours at night.  

Now, at nearly 6 months old, we have regressed a bit on the night times (could be a growth spurt), and we have absolutely no pattern for daytime sleep.  She will predictably take a nap in either late morning or early afternoon, but I have no idea whether it will be 5 minutes or an hour.  She has only slept more than an hour in her crib during the day maybe 5 times.  In 6 months.  So that has put my ability to do ANY project to a screeching halt.  I have only managed to deep clean once (with extensive baby sitting help from bigger siblings), and have yet to finish grading tests from school, even though we've been done with school for 3 months.