How did we survive as a species?

How did we, as humans, survive as a species if we all were toddlers at one point? I have to ask this question after 3 nights in a row of sleep deprivation. No one told Olivia that torture was outlawed. It's like she has a innate sense of when I am just about to enter REM and she screams bloody murder. Yes, she has a cold and, poor baby, cannot breathe well or eat well (what's new there?), but I am worried that we are back to square 1 with getting her to eat and sleep "Normally".
This past week she has worn the badge of toddler proudly. I can understand it's frustrating to live in a world where you want everything you can't have, you can't do much without help, you can't communicate what you want or don't want...but why the nails-on-a-chalkboard-wailing every five minutes? Oy. I guess the good thing is that toddlers don't have much of an attention span so you can distract them with something else to help them forget that five minutes ago they wanted to stick their fingers in something potentially dangerous.
Last night was a real test of my will. Ironically enough, it was Mother's day yesterday. When I should have felt pampered and adored, I felt like I needed more caffeine. Caffeine was the only thing that made me human yesterday... But it has worn off this morning and I have to start the IV fresh. Like I said, Olivia has had a cold. She had a fever the night before, so not sleeping well was understandable. John and I have taken turns holding her in the glider while she slept and we...sorta slept. It was the only way to stop the wailing and help us get to sleep. I think I read somewhere that illness was a reason to actually not let them cry it out (back to sleep). But last night, I was worried this was going to be her new thing, sick or no. She refused dinner...so I gave her some infant cereal and cheerios before she went to bed to get something in her stomach. She actually ate it, which was good, but then she refused her evening bottle, which was not so good. As soon as John and I turned out the lights for us to go to sleep, she started the wailing. So, now that I am unemployed and not going to work, I offered to go in there and soother her back to sleep. I picked her up and rocked her back to sleep in the glider. I put her back in the crib and went back to my bed. I repeated this process, pretty much hourly, until 2am. At that time, I decided that she was refusing a bottle, so she wasn't hungry, she was just taking advantage of me. I decided, to John's dismay, that she was going to cry herself back to sleep and not get into the habit of needing us to soothe her all of the time.
John felt otherwise and went down to the kitchen to make her a bottle. After fuming a little bit, I decided to try the bottle and Olivia sucked it down. The problem is, now we've set up a pattern for her that she can refuse dinner because she'll get a midnight snack. She's starting to remember stuff like that, to my dismay. I am really hoping this is just a "sick" thing and that we'll get our sleep back shortly as she woke up with a runny nose and a cough, but otherwise her "old" self this morning.
While we're on the subject of how much I feel I am failing as a mother, Olivia is still having bottles. I Googled to see if there was a trick to getting babies to drink milk from a sippy cup, but it all seems to come down to cold turkey. "Luckily" for us, Olivia will dehydrate herself before she guzzles down more than a sip of milk from anything other than a bottle. She drinks from a sippy cup. Thankfully that is not my issue, but if it's anything other than water, she will throw that sippy to the floor and never look back. We tried different sippy cups. Everything works for a second and then she seems to catch on that we are "tricking" her and makes a face like she just sucked on a lemon and goes on sippy strike. No water no drink. We asked our pediatrician what we should do. He said he's not concerned as long as she gets her dairy from other sources (ie cheese, yogurt, etc.) So, that has been a little relief, but I am still a bad mommy because we are still giving her bottles. I can't bring myself to find out what horror awaits me if Olivia goes to bed or naps without a bottle. I have to admit, I like sitting with her in the glider and rocking her to sleep with a bottle of warm milk (not to mention the fact that she is actually having something other than water.) It's not something I am ready to give up even if she is...) Why does everything have to be on a deadline? I hate feeling bad for doing things that don't seem so bad, but every other mother seems to have transitioned with ease out of the bottle. *sigh*
I have also learned my lesson: Unless the mother is actually abusing her child, never judge another mother for how she is raising her child. It will always come back to bite you. The other day, I was at the park playing with Olivia. I was always within arms reach of her, but watching these older boys play on the equipment while these two moms stared at their cell phones or gossiped with eachother...essentially ignoring their children who decided to make a game of seeing who can jump from a higher height from places on the equipment, I am sure, were not meant to be leaped from. I started to glare at these bad mommies, thinking to myself, pay attention to your kids, ladies, not your phones. When, all of a sudden I hear Olivia crying. While I was standing in judgement of other mothers, I was essentially ignoring my own daughter, who had fallen. Lesson learned. Lesson learned. (However, I can't help but get annoyed that there seems to be a rapid increase in parents who are more interested in their I phone than their children.... what type of world are we raising when smart phones are turning us into dumb-parents, Steve Jobs?)