DS is 27m, about two months ago we took the sides off his cot, to turn it into a toddler bed. He's been, up to this point, a good sleeper. Naps well and slept through (with no feeds) from about 7 months, and we've never had to do any sleep training with him. Until early this year we were reading him a story and then cuddling him till he fell asleep and placing him in the cot.
One of the main reasons for putting him in a bed was because my back couldn't cope with that anymore. Now he gets his story sitting in bed and either we sit next to him, or in the chair across the room till he falls asleep (takes about 5 minutes with me, longer with DH for some reason). The problem is that he is waking up every single night, around midnight, really upset asking to 'go in the big bed with mummy'. I've just been taking him to the spare bed to co-sleep because I don't really know what else to do. But, I really want to encourage him to sleep in his bed all night. If I try and press it and make him go back to bed he just cries if I try and leave and comes out of his room, if I push it again he gets more and more hysterical. If we go and co-sleep then he generally just falls asleep, reaching out a hand every now and then to check I'm still there.
I don't mind co-sleeping exactly, they are only little like this for a short time but it's every single night now and when we have people stay he ends up in bed with us and then DH gets no sleep and there's just not enough room for the three of us. I'm really not open to any time of CC or CIO methods, so does anyone know how I can gently encourage DS to stay in his own bed? Or is it just a phase and I need to wait it out?