Beds, pillows and co-sleeping.

We are thinking it is time for DD (18months) to maybe go into a single bed. Currently she sleeps in her cot and we are thinking that maybe she will have a more restful sleep in a bed.

We don't have too many probs with her sleep, but I do often find her lying across the cot with legs sticking out the bars or she 'sleep crawl' all the way up the cot until she bangs onto the bars. On a couple of occassions I have awoken to her screaming out to our dog (in her sleep) and she was standing up leaning over the cot rail trying to catch the dog (I assume)- either way, I was grateful then that she was in a cot as she is a fairly active sleeper. Maybe once a week DH has to take her into the spare room bed because she wont go back to sleep.

Anyway, time for a bed? And what about a pillow?

I'm interested in hearing your experiences with going from bed to cot, and whether we should get a bed that DH can sleep in to if need be (although we don't want to start regular co-sleeping). Any advice, ideas welcome :)

TIA

We buy king singles fr our kids. An adult can easily fit if needed. You could start out with a trundle, as it is lower to the ground.

We just used a kids small, fairly flat pillow. I do find she bangs into the wall a lt, so I have a long sausage pillow along the wall to stop her slamming into it. Also have a bed rail to stop her falling out the oter side as she flings herself around in her sleep too.

We got DS a king single too so that u can sleep with him. So while I don't have any trouble getting him out of my bed I do share his bed a lot ;)

we also have a king single for DS. it started as a mattress on the floor when he was about 9 months & i'd say by the time he was around 21 months we'd put the base with it. we were still a bit worried about the height so we took the casters off (it's two mattresses rather than a mattress & base). we put some pillows on the floor at the start but i'd say he's fallen out maybe once & that was it.

we started with one of the really flat pillows when we made it into the bed & now he's on a flat-ish adult pillow (at 2.5yrs).

we never really did the cot thing but did find the transition to a bed an easy one. it's a great size to be able to sleep next to him or even a cuddle if needed.

We went with a mattress on the floor too but found that he never fell out, DD fell out a few times but just carried on sleeping! The bed they are in though is a single that had the legs cut off and is really low to the floor. At around 4 DD went into a normal sized single with no worries. If you are still worried you could get a barrier fairly cheaply or put a mattress or bean baag not he floor next to the bed. We also went with a really flat kids pillow and they loved it straight away and found that they stayed in the one spot - DD was a bit of a wanderer in her cot but stopped once she was in the bed. xoxo