Sleepless

Wow the last two nights have been looong! Night before last I didn't get him to sleep till after 5am and last night/ this morning I gave up at about 6:30am and woke my husband up because I was exhausted (two hours of sleep will do that to you). The baby finally went to sleep for him about 10am. Did I mention that when I woke him up I was crying, balling really, because I felt like a total failure as a mother because nothing I was doing was making my little angel happy.
I realize now that it was the sleep deprivation talking but at the time it just felt like I was failing at life. So....he was up for 13 hours with only two 30min sleep breaks. Is that normal? I thought babies slept for 12-18 hours not were up for 12 hours at a time? He's not sick that we can tell and seems to feel all right, only cries if I put him down... He has his two month checkup next week so I'm going to ask the doctor. He hasn't really slept that much today 10-2.... then 3;30-6;30 then he took a little nap around 7 and woke up at about 8:15...got him back to sleep a little before 10 and he's waking up again....sigh. I know he is miserable too I can tell he wants to sleep but just can't get it. Yesterday during the day after his little 10 hours of wakie time he slept for 7 hours and acted like he felt much better...till he woke up at 10;30 and stayed awake for 12 hours...ok I'm rambling but if anyone knows anything about what keeps babies up for such long stretches I'd love to hear about it.
Oh and I've tried swaddling which works sometimes and shhhing noises and a sound machine and a swinging chair all of which work great except when he's in marathon wakie time. Sweet dreams all.