My first baby was an appallingly bad sleeper. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sleeper. We read the books which were worthless and we hired a sleep coach who was stumped. Eventually she just figured out herself how to sleep through the night at 15 months.
Now with our second (3 months old, 1 month adjusted age), we seem to be on a path to have an even worse sleeper. At one point she gave us a 5-hour stretch at night, but then that regressed to no more than 2 hours at a time. Her best sleep is when she is being held or is sleeping on someone's chest. Napping is appalling unless she is being worn in the baby wrap/carrier (where she sleeps very well). For example, we try to lay her down in her bed, swaddled, on her back, and she wakes immediately. Or more recently, I lay her down drowsy but awake, swaddled, on her back, and she will manage to fall asleep (I think) but wake up after no more than 10 minutes. I rock her back into a calm but drowsy state, put her down again, and ten minutes later she is screaming.
We tried sleeping on her belly, which worked a bit better, but still only gave us about 2 hours at night. For the first few days I tried that she napped amazingly well during the day and was a happy baby. However, that stopped working also. Basically I am at my wit's end. I go back to work in 5 weeks and am scared of trying to function during the day after being up 6-8 times a night. Does anyone have any advice? Should be go ahead and hire another sleep coach now?