ANOTHER reminder that my little boy is not so little anymore. He’s only sleeping in a big boy’s bed now!

We made the decision that the time was right to ditch the cot in favour of a regular mattress and bed set-up.

I had been putting it off as I quite liked the idea that when I put him in his cot, I knew that was exactly where he was going to stay.

When I mentioned to a mum friend of mine that we were planning the transition she took a sharp intake of breath and said: “I’d keep them caged as long as possible, myself.” She was speaking from experience as, for some reason, her little cherub preferred the pre-dawn hours ever since he was released from the bars of his cot.

Around 5.30am for as long as she could remember the padding of feet could be heard making their way towards their bedroom, the door being gently pushed open before the tell-tale tug of the duvet.

There was no escaping the fact he was up.

Similarly, another friend of mine had got into the habit of nodding off in the child’s bed as they tried to soothe them to sleep after the change to the big bed proved a bit traumatic for them.

All these stories were playing on my mind as I sadly watched the cot being transformed into a tiny bed that would suit Goldilocks down to the ground in the three bears’ house.

Steeling ourselves, we turned our encouragement dials to maximum, slapped excited looks on our faces and began the charm offensive on the boy we thought would take one look and decide a bed was not for him.

My low expectation was fuelled by his point blank refusal to wee in a toilet, proving he had no desire to be “a big boy”. I was certain the bed would be met with the same fate as the potty – gathering dust.

But as he bounded onto the mattress and bounced up and down on it, things were certainly looking up. When it actually came to bedtime he positively ran into his bedroom and snuggled down on his pillow. Closing the door and tiptoeing away I was sure it would be five minutes before he realised there was nothing to stop him getting up and roaming wherever he chose. But all we were met with was silence. Either the boy just didn’t get it or the bed came with some invisible force field of which we were unaware.

It has been a week since the change, and still nothing but complete textbook sleeping in the bed. He has also tagged on another 20 minutes in the morning so I get to nod past 7am. Bliss.

It is so nice to be pleasantly surprised but I can’t help thinking it will all go horribly wrong when he finally discovers freedom is his for the taking.