Books and help manuals like to tell you newborns sleep for however many hours a day, to try and make it sound easy, but like you said - newborns only sleep for small periods at a time, including at night.

I spent an insane number of hours in the middle of the night bouncing on a swiss exercise ball, holding the baby, in nothing but my pants, in the dark, with the tv on (but muted), to coax the baby back to sleep. Honestly ... this sorta stuff needs to mentioned more to let prospective parents know what they're in for.

Since having a child, I've nothing but total admiration for any single parent - how they manage without a fulltime partner would be beyond my ability.