Fourth Trimester and I miss the word: SLEEP

It is beginning of the night shift and I’m, again, full of naive hope. It’s been five weeks of scavenging for sleep and the puzzle to achieve it changes every day. Nuggles is... particular:
She likes to sleep on her back then her belly then her side and always on me.
She does her best farting with a death grip bundle of my hair in her tiny renegade fist.
Her tiny egg-sized belly is the decider of all punctuality and timing.
She enjoys JeepJeep but dislikes wearing beanies.
She dislikes swaddling, but also dislikes scratching her face.
Baths and showers are soothing tools of comfort...until THEY ARE FUCKING NOT AND HOW DARE I!?!?
She prefers guitar over piano and female vocalists over male (unless it’s Hendrix or Gregory Alan Isakov).
Pacifiers suck. Nipples por vida.

Just to name a few things.
I'm at her disposal really and it's a steep curve of learning in order to function.
(as I sit here, attempt #15 to be productive, with my Boba wrap on and empty, breastfeeding on my boppy pillow, propped up at my desk awkwardly typing one handed over a little boob princess)
​The good news is....last night... I GOT SOME SLEEP.
I'm not quite sure how much... or when... but prolly around five hours total. And. AND! I got it in my bed. In my beautiful, big, comfy bed. Nugget slept in the basket beside me and... it was heaven.

As a new first time Mom, you read and research and compare and re-read articles and books. You listen politely and often blindly to the advice of others and come to decisions through imaginative deductive future reasoning. I've read about car seat safety, safe sleep safety, breastfeeding safety, germ safety, bath safety, babywearing safety, food safety... all....safety.

And I can't help but wonder how many times these individuals and organizations have been sued to compel them to preemptively declare all this safety and for the world to get behind and push it down throats. Meanwhile it's the older generations of Mothers who tell us new Moms about how she used to do it.
"When you were a baby I would..."
"You used to be able to..."
"I dunno about all that, but I would...."
"If I were you I would..."
"Maybe you should..."
There's a lot of listening and reading  woulds and shoulds as a new Mom.

*****and no, Mom, I'm not just picking on you*****

In the end, you have to do what works for you, not just the Kiddo. How do I keep my sanity being a single parent responsible for my five week old 24 hours a day... every day?

We cat nap--we attempt.... to  cat nap. We attempt in chairs, on couches, in bed, in bassinets, in cribs, in swings. We try everywhere and everything.  We try it in the morning, we try it at night--we try it at noon time, what a delight!
It usually boils down to me stuffing pillows and baby blankets along my sides in the recliner so as to lock me into position. I feed her on the boppy, slowly and delicately remove the gummy nipple at the end, and carefully place her on my chest... eventually we recline slightly... and maybe we get an hour or two nap.

As a matter of fact, it's time for another attempt.

Wish us luck!