help - 2.5 year old newly into her own bed now joins us every night

[pregnabrain]

Hello

Our dd has just gone from cot into her own bed. She loves her bed, but has now worked out that she can leave it whenever she likes and wander into our room. This has happened at 4am, 5.30am and 6am on the last few nights.

She's a total wriggler and, as soon as she's in our bed, my sleep really suffers. There's a big part of me that wants to stop this happening right now, before it becomes a habit that's too hard to break, especially as number 2 is due in May next year.

But then I think how nice it must be for her to sneak in with us (and I do love it when I hear her little feet patter into our room and feel her climb in and snuggle up to us) and I feel like i'm being really hard and selfish.

I don't know what to do about this one!

We put a stairgate over ds1's bedroom when he went into a bed and that did the trick.
In fact, when we took it off he was quite upset about it!

hi pregnabrain - exactly the same situation here except that no. 2 is due next Tuesday!!
I am also torn between loving her coming in (she always brings her dolly and a book to read ) and knowing this has to stop when baby no.2 arrives. What we have done with moderate success is to give her stickers the next morning for being a big girl and staying in her own bed all night when she doesn't come in. She LOVES getting stickers and she seems to be coming in less and less since we started doing this.

I don't want to put up a stairgate/close the door because I don't want her to feel she CAN'T come in if she has had a nightmare or something. And also I want to positively encourage her coming in for a morning cuddle and a story... so not sure if I would recommend our method as such as it has only partially worked but might work for you as you have a bit more time until number 2 arrives!

i am just thinking about putting my dd 2.1 in a bed. the only thing stopping me it the thought of her getting out whenever she wants to.
my dh says we will put a stair gate up to stop her, but then i have visions of her just standing there shouting for me.
i have never been someone who wants their child in bed with them, and dont want to start now, so not sure what to do.
one night a couple of weeks ago, my dd was all bunged up and wouldnt settle in the cot, so after a while i put her in my bed, thinking she would settle next to me, but she must have thought 'how strange being in bed with mummy', abd just wanted to sit up and look around. not to sleep at all!

Hi there and thanks for your messages.

So, I'm here on Mumsnet at 6.43am, having been ousted from my bed by dd's wriggling / kicking (started at 5.30) and am feeling completely miserable.

This time she climbed in and started her usual horizontal aerobics. After about half an hour I couldn't stand it any more, so I picked her up and carried her back to her room. She started wailing "I'm a big girl...I'm a big girl" and broke my heart completely.

I just feel so sad about stopping her, even though, like you lizandlulu, I've never wanted to do the whole co-sleeping thing.

I think I might try the stairgate. I suppose it's no different to a cot, really. I didn't feel cruel when she used to call for me from her cot so, hopefully, this will be no different.

skidaddle - sounds like a nice idea to reward her with stickers but am doing stickers for potty training at the mo, so it might get a bit confusing. Good luck and congratulations on your new baby. I hope your sleep situation is sorted by the time it arrives.

Stairgate.

don't feel cruel - the choice of whether to stay in bed or get up is disturbing her sleep