Cot or bed

[MissLanaBanana]

After some advice..my nearly 2yo dc is still in a cot. Goes off to sleep for a daily nap with no problems-I just lay him down say night and walk out and he goes straight to sleep until I wake him up 2 hours later.
At night time he goes off similarly at 7, although can have a bit of a whinge for 5 minutes or so. Occasionally he will really cry so we bring him down stairs and try again in half hour or so.
The problem is during the night, he's slept through maybe 4/7 nights and the other times will cry about 3/4 and I'll put him in bed with me until he calms then put him back to bed. On the nights dh is listening out for him he goes and sleeps on a pull out bed in ds's room and ds settles and goes back to sleep. This was manageable but it's started being every night and I want to break the cycle. Most times nothing seems to be wrong in the night, he turns down a drink and his nappy isn't really wet. He does have excema which I think might be waking him, but not sure. He quickly settles when he sees me or his dad.
What can I do? Do you think moving him to a bed would help? I'm worried this will cause more problems as he does settle well at bedtimes now. What were your experiences of moving dc to a bed from a cot?was it as awful as I'm imagining?!
He is above the 99th percentile for his age but is very slim, the cot is slightly smaller than a cot bed size and he still has a dummy for sleep.

Also when we tuck him in he refuses to have any sheets on top of him, so I layer him up for bed time! Also gets quite distressed in a sleeping bag and undoes it.

Do you think moving him to a bed would help?

No. In fact a bed would probably make things worse because he'll just be stood at the bedroom door yelling for you.

It sounds behavioural to me, not developmental. He likes sleeping with Mummy and/or Daddy so he has developed a habit of waking so he gets to sleep in Mummy's bed or with Daddy next to him.

You need to treat it more like a behaviour issue and deal with it in the way you would deal with any other behaviour you don't like. Being consistent and having form boundaries will be the key to dealing with this.

So established that he will go to sleep in his cot, in his own room, without you in the room. Then just keep on reaffirming this. Both you and your DH doing the same.

It will be really hard work initially, so expect a lot of frustration and tears from DS and very little sleep for everyone. But if you are consistent, you should be able to sort this within a week or so.

Do as you do at bedtime - say nan night, into cot, sleep time now, leave. If he screams give it a few minutes for him to settle then repeat. Say nan night, into cot, sleep time now, leave. The leaving is important, he needs to KNOW you have gone, so don't sneak out. The key is to teach him that in the night he will be going back to sleep on his own.

I would also consider a night light if you don't already have one. Just in case of scared of the dark.