One Night On, One Night Off

Honestly, I could go in my backyard and scream right now. The words would likely be four-lettered, and unpleasant. The phrase "roll with the punches" keeps coming to my mind, but right now I say screw that!
I like consistency. I like knowing when something is going to happen, and when. I guess I'm not keen on spontaneity - at least when it comes to my kids, and sleeping. I like a basic schedule, a regular routine naptime, and a good night's sleep - for everyone.
The last 7 months have been okay as far as sleeping I guess - if you are okay with being up 3-5 times a night. These wake-ups are short, and don't require a lot of time or work, which makes it easy to pass it off as a "good night". But they are not good nights, and doing that kind of wake-up-back-to-bed routine has taken it's toll. My interrupted sleep is not good sleep at all. Have you read about the recent studies done on sleep? If you do a CT scan on the brain of a sleep-deprived person, even if it's only an hour or two, the brain patterns resemble those of a person with psychosis. I FEEL like I'm going psycho!
So this past week Rayya has been up to something a little different. Now, with the introduction of more solids, she seems to be sleeping better. However, a better night for her means that the following days' schedule of napping get screwed, and therefore her next night is bad. Today we're on the screwed up nap schedule, which means tonight will be rough. What she does is this:
• Goes to bed for the night at 8:00pm, usually without a peep.
• On a good night there will be no wake-ups, or at most one, just to put in a soother.
• She'll sleep until 5:00am, have a bottle and go back to sleep, or on a really good night, sleep through until 8:00am or so.
• If she has a good night, she will fight her morning nap usually until I give in and keep her up. If she has a bad night, she will take about an hour long nap in the morning, about 9:00am-10:00am.
• If she skips morning nap, she will fall asleep with her midday bottle, at 12:30, which is too early.
• Then she will wake up before 3:00pm, and not go back to sleep.
• If she naps well in the afternoon (two or three hours), and wakes up around 4:00pm, she will be fine until bedtime and have a good night.
• If she doesn't have a good afternoon nap, like today, she will be exhausted by 6:00pm, but that is too late for a nap, and too early for bed. Screwed! The night ahead will either be effected by a too-late nap, or an overtired baby.
I hate this routine. I've thought about letting her cry it out, but this too comes with complications. When Rayya wakes up at night, she isn't crying. She's happy. If I let her be, she just simply coos and talks to herself until she's all wide awake and hyper - and THEN I might have to try to work to put her back to sleep. It would be easier if she would cry! I can't sleep when she's babbling to herself. And you know how everything in the house seems doubly loud at night when all else is quiet? Well, so does her talking, and squealing. So it keeps me up, and potentially could wake up all the other sleepers.
All this waking and wondering and guessing and working has me right ticked. I want sleep at night, so that I have energy to look after everyone, cook a couple of meals, and not lose my patience and my mind. I can definately tell that the sporadic behaviour of little miss Rayya is making me extremely anxious. She is happy, and for that I am SO thankful - but eventually her happiness still masks sleepiness, and she needs to get that sleep. How do you fix the miss-match of a non-routine child with a thrives-on-routine mother?

UPDATE: After getting mad and causing Rayya to cry (because I wouldn't take her out of her crib, and said in a firm voice "no, it's sleeping time"), she has finally fallen to sleep again. I snuck in there to watch her, and immediately I feel guilty, and horrible for making her cry. I just pray that I can raise her to be a Godly woman, with tonnes more patience and endurance than me. I want her to love her kids more than anything, and I want her to know love and know that she is loved more than anything. All the anger melts away when I look at that little person, innocently sleeping, knowing nothing more than her mommy will be there to get her when she wakes up. Why do I get so stressed about this sleep thing? I just want to enjoy every moment, and love every moment, but I get caught up in the frustrations of the moment instead. Argh.