Christy,

I haven't been through this yet, cos as you know, Olivia is nowhere near as acrobatic as Matilda!

BUT, reading your post reminded me of my SIL who gentrly transitioned my neice from cot to bed, and was worried about it also.

What they ended up doing was having, in her room, the cot and the big-girl bed (sort of at right-angles?). My neice then got to choose which bed she wanted to sleep in when it came to nap time sleeps. 9 times out of ten for the first few weeks she chose the cot, and on the days she chose the big-girl bed, my SIL found herself having to "sleep next to" her daughter to help her lull off to sleep.

This took about a month, with all the other sleeping cues (cuddles/story/music etc) and then apparently one day my neice just started going straight to the big-girl bed, and they got rid of the cot about a week later.

So it took a while, was a bit cramped, but the transition was made gradually with no upsets at all.

HTH Christy!