Superdad Will Lodge celebrates the move from cot to bed.

People – probably mostly mattress advertisers – always tell us that a new bed can work wonders for your sleep, and I am starting to think there may be more than a grain of truth in that.

For the past week Toddler has been in her new bed. Or rather, her old cot converted into a bed.

Coupled with this change in security (gone are the bars on one side penning her in), she has also got a new bed set with pillow and duvet for the first time. Aptly, it is In The Night Garden.

So all in all, a brand new environment for her and one that brought with it trepidation from my wife and I as to how she would take to it.

Given the problems we had been having getting her to sleep in her own cot, something I wrote about previously and caused by a change in routine brought about by illness, quite frankly anything would have been an improvement.

With some slight anxiousness on Toddler’s part to begin with, mostly around a duvet (she is not one to have covers on her), and a lot of excitement about being able to climb in and out of her own bed, the first night was a tense one.

From our perspective as parents we were also concerned that she may celebrate her new-found freedom by continually climbing out of her bed and trying to jump into ours.

However I am happy to report that despite a few tense moments – mostly from us worried that despite her bed guard she would roll out of bed in her sleep, a fear which has not been realised – all has gone well. Toddler now spends the night in her own bed, hurrah!

We have had to experiment with new bedtime routines, with no conclusive results yet. We once had success with leaving her there with the door open saying we were tucking her brothers into bed, though mostly we have to sit there with her until she falls asleep.

It is a risk that we set-up a new routine tying us to her bed while she journeys to the land of nod, but while she adjusts to the bed it is a risk worth taking in our eyes.

The sleep is doing her wonders, so much so she even sometimes skips a daytime nap and sails right through the day. Something that brings her closer to grown-up status, but does leave us without a break from her energy.

Talking about the move to grown-up, we are eagerly awaiting her first sentence.

Toddler’s babble is moving ever-closer to actual speech, and she had us all in stitches at the dinner table this week as she attempted all of our names.

While “mama” and “dada” are relatively easy, her brothers’ names – especially Seth, a particularly tricky sound for someone new to language – were somewhat harder and kept us all amused.

Of course once she starts she won’t stop.