Transitioning a mobile, energetic 22 mo old to a bed

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Sorry - this turned into a very long post! Some background: my DD is almost 22 months old and has always been a non-stop child who finds it hard to let go and stop doing things at bedtime. When she's in reasonable health and not teething, she understands that it is bedtime and would mess around in her cot talking to herself and occasionally needing one of us to check in, but eventually go to sleep on her own (although sometimes it would take an hour). Ill or toothy is another matter, but we'll hope to avoid that for now.

She can climb out of a cot with ease, and will. Since we're in the middle of a big move and currently staying with friends, we found a travel cot that had higher sides, and that did the job for 3 weeks. She has now worked out how to unzip the sides and climb out that way, but we've thwarted her (for now) by tying the zip ends together (cue some anger!).

When we have finished the move, we're going to have to put her into a proper bed (I might get one of those ikea toddler beds with a bar), and she is going to have to learn to stay in it even though it doesn't have sides that keep her in. My fear is that I'm going to be sitting outside her bedroom door for three months sending her back to her room! She has never settled well with one of us sitting with her from tucking in to sleep time, because she views it as an opportunity to play, although once she has had her time for mucking about/making her protests known, she will sometimes ask for me to sit by the cot while she dozes off. The only times she has tried sleeping in a proper bed without sides though, she can't even lie down for the excitement (when she first climbed out we took the side off, and she kept going til 12.45 am at which point DH took her for a drive and I put the side back on - she still got up at 6.30 am).

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to survive the transition without going stir-crazy?

Does she sleep in a sleeping bag in her cot? One thing that helped my DCs with the transition was to move them across to their beds, still using their sleeping bags. It maintained a familiar aspect of going to bed and also restricted their movement and freedom to climb out of bed and walk around.
All children are excited by the initial freedom offered by a real bed, but that soon wears off.
If you're worried about her escaping from her room, one possibility is to use a baby gate across the doorway. The door can be opened, but the child can't get out. It's less scary and restrictive than a closed door.

We started using a cot duvet about 3 months ago, partly because she was growing out of the bags she had (though I did get a larger one for day sleeps at nursery which was used for a bit), but partly because she was quite able (and prepared) to remove herself from the sleeping bag if she felt so inclined. Also, bagged, the only way she could get out of the cot was head first, which I didn't much fancy, whereas with legs free at least it was an almost-safe exit procedure! She could climb around and walk and crawl no bother in the sleeping bag, else that would definitely have been an option. (Houdini child.)

I don't want to scare you, but we put ds into a bed (took sides off cot bed initially) at 22 months...and six months later he finally stopped mucking about at bedtime and started sleeping through again! We ended up having to use a reward chart from about 2.4 years for a couple of months, but that was to tackle night waking mostly. Only time, persistence and a lot of shouting resulted in him staying in bed for us. We considered putting the bars back on at first, but knew we'd have to go through it at some point. And he was a fairly placid and lazy boy during the day I'm afraid!

Good luck.

Noooo! Don't say that! Am going to start with a two pronged approach: 1) not even start the bedtime routine until she is drooping with the tireds, and 2) read books in bed until she is practically asleep already. Have already shifted the book reading to after the tooth cleaning as of today to prepare for doing it actually in bed, and she did agree to be tucked in in her cot and went straight off to sleep after having my company for a few minutes and then sneaking out. There's hope... And I think if she does wake in the night she'll just howl rather than coming in search, because she doesn't have her Houdini powers engaged when she's only just woken up!