MAXIMO

It's very frustrating to us how little time we get to spend with Maximo during the week - really it's about an hour in the morning - and that's sharing duties and getting ready for work too (not real quality time) and about an hour and a half to two hours in the afternoon. The time in the afternoon is mainly spent, feeding, bathing and getting Maximo ready for bed. So, energized from a decent night's rest, with no thought of work for at least another day and a half - at last the weekend has arrived and we have 48 hours of uninterrupted Maximo!
This morning when he got up we just put him on the play mat to see what he's doing physically - we rarely have a lot of play time during the week together. It's fun to watch him explore his surroundings and his body movements. He's rolling both ways now, though stomach to back is still a little hard for him. He actually enjoys playing on his stomach for long periods of time and really enjoys playing sitting up - though he can't do it unassisted yet (he's usually between our legs or he uses the Boppy).
These past two weeks, he has been exploring his body more with his hands and loves to play with his ears and like a true boy... his Willy Wonka! In the bath, he's mesmorized by this appendage and hangs on to it.
And lastly, what's going on with the sleeping front... At this moment, he's just fallen asleep for his morning cat nap after crying for about 10 minutes. We're afraid he's going to lose his voice! He's getting a bit hoarse from all the crying. He's doing better, but he really struggles with falling asleep on his own in the evening. Often times at 6 pm he is already very overtired, so he can't settle himself down. It's common for preemies to get overstimulated throughout the day - and with that and our 8 month bad habit of rocking him to sleep and being a bad napper has created a bedtime problem.
We've made the pact to not pick him up, but we'll go in about every ten minutes or so to put our hands on him and tell him he's okay. It's getting better and he's sleeping more soundly. We've also gotten rid of one feeding at night - so now we're down to just one. So, he goes to bed about 6 pm, wakes up about 12:30 for a 3 oz. bottle, then sleeps until about 5 or 5:30. We switched him to a bottle at night (even though it's a bigger hassle than popping my milk maker into his mouth), so we can start decreasing the quantity of milk to ultimately stop any night time feedings.
Phew... this is a lot of work!