How do you handle a toddler who won't stay in their bed?

[Writerwannabe83]

My toddler is 2yr 3m and for the last 3-4 weeks he has been in a bed instead of a cot and it has caused a whole load of issues.

The main one is refusal to stay in his bed.

We have a stair gate across his door and a video monitor so I know he's safe and I can watch what he is up to but to be honest I don't know what is the right way to deal with it.

I'm torn between either completely ignoring him, letting him do as he wishes (within reason) until he eventually gives in/gets bored and goes to sleep...

OR....

Going in to him each time he gets out of bed, put him back in it and tell him it's bedtime.

I'm worried the first option means he will be up for hours causing trouble but then I'm worried the second option will just give him attention and turn bedtime into a fun game for him.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be most appreciated.

You have my sympathies, we had about 8 weeks of hell when we transitioned DS to a bed at 16 months (why so early you ask - he had grown too big for his cot [not cotbed], and the wonderful MIL bullied DH into it!)
The nuts that finally cracked it for us were:

1. dropping his second nap (he was still having two at the time)
2. sitting on a chair in his room, with lights off, and resolutely putting him back in bed every time he got out. in silence. until he got bored. no eye contact etc. Be warned some nights this happened upwards of 50 times in the early days. But the novelty DID wear off and he is now an angel at bedtime! Dont doubt yourself. Dont give in. We chose to sit in his room rather than leave the room and go back each time, because DS found the latter rather a fun game, coming to the stair gate on his door laughing, waiting for us to appear and put him back. He was also doing dangerous things like jumping on the bed etc. so we didnt feel it oK to leave him in there. To wean off of us sitting in there we just moved the chair closer and closer to the door. Then eventually he was trustworthy to leave!

Dont give in (even though I know that at 9pm you are dying for dinner and gin!) - we took it in turns to sit with him each night. Turns out sitting in the dark in silence is quite good therapy!

Oh and for the early waking, we have a gro clock - which at 2yrs 4 months he totally understands and again after a few weeks of being VERY consistent (ie not coming to him pre clock turning yellow) he now lies in bed staring at it until shouting "clock yellow!" joyously at 6am :)

We had a glo clock but when the night scene turned off (we had s Winnie the Pooh one) it wasn't replaced with a daytime scene so it just plunged DS's room into darkness and he would have a right meltdown from being scared.