Toby is now 20 (and a half) months old and his sleep issues are already well documented on this blog! Actually, his sleep has been getting much better over the last few weeks and he even seems to have stopped the screaming when we left the room which had become a feature of bedtimes recently.

I have been starting to wonder though whether Toby’s sleep might be improved by a move out of his cot and into a bed. Although he’s very tall he still has lots of room in his cot and (so far) hasn’t attempted to climb out. He does bump against the sides quite a bit when he’s going to sleep and sometimes in the night and I wonder if this is disturbing his sleep.

He’s going to have to move into a bed sooner or later and with the new baby arriving in August I’m keen to move him before we need his cot so he doesn’t feel like he is being evicted! Eventually both children will have to share a room (until we move house) but I’m hoping that we will manage to keep the baby in with us for longer than we did with Toby. We put him in his own room when he was six weeks old because his reflux made him very noisy in his sleep and we all slept better when he wasn’t in with us.

My main concern with moving Toby into a bed is that he will then have the freedom to get out and potentially cause chaos. He loves going in the drawers and wardrobe in his room and unless we put locks on everything I can see us waking up to find everything all over the floor! I think we would also need to put a gate across his door as he can easily open all the doors in our house. We currently have a gate across the hall which means Toby can still get to our room. This is fine if we’re there but if we were downstairs I think he might be out of bed and running around all over the place.

Of course, I might be wrong and he might just love a big boy bed and stay in it all night. I know the only way to find out is to make the leap but I am more than a little apprehensive. I think we are going to get a bed in the next few weeks (and I’m planning on going straight to a single rather than a toddler bed) and then we might put it in Toby’s room and see what he makes of it. We’ve booked a caravan holiday in May too and Toby is going to have to sleep in a bed, with a bed rail, then as he’s too big for the travel cot now and I think maybe getting him used to a bed at home first might be a good idea.

I’d love to hear when you moved your little ones into their big beds. Are there any issues I haven’t thought of or was it all plain sailing and I should just stop worrying and do it?