KELLY BROWN Mum's the Word...There may be trouble ahead once he's in his big boy's bed

To be fair to him, it’s not his fault I woke up at 4.30am this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep.

And it’s not his fault my husband’s 5.15am alarm clock woke him up, leaving him frightened and pleading to be allowed to sleep in mummy and daddy’s bed (something we generally avoid).

But having spent an hour-and-a-half attempting to sleep next to a fidgeting toddler, I’m thinking I need to take action to stop him sneaking into our bed at night taking over.

We had it all worked out. My son turns two next month so we thought the time was right to release him from the prison bars of his cot and make him feel all grown up with his big boy bed.

He has one of those cot beds which easily converts from one to the other with bit of handy work from my hubby.

We have acquired one of those bed guard things thanks to a generous donation from my sister-in-law. So this weekend we were planning to do the switch and see how it went.

I’m reasonably confident going to bed at night won’t be an issue because he is one of those children who, like clockwork, is suddenly tired ten minutes before bed and all he wants to do is go to sleep.

And I’ve been preparing myself for the potential of a little mischief-making when he discovers he can escape from his bed – and have visions of him running around upstairs like a looney enjoying his new-found freedom.

But in the early hours of this morning when I found myself hanging off the edge of the bed while my tiny little boy decided to lay across the bed rather than down it, the potential new problem hit me.

Am I going to wake up to a beaming little boy next to me asking to come into my bed in that gorgeous sweet way which makes it so hard to say no?

Or am I going to wake up and suddenly find my munchkin’s foot in my tummy/head/face after he sneaks into my bed with all the skill of a covert ninja – having no cot bars to stop him?

And I thought you were supposed to get more sleep as your kids got older – not less!

* Series with a built-in no-escape factor

I wasn’t going to watch it – promise. But I gave in to peer pressure on Saturday and watched the X Factor.

Every year I avoid the beginning of the new series like the plague.

And every year I end up watching the last five or so episodes because either a) there is nothing else on, or b) either guests ask if we mind sticking it on or it’s on at someone else’s house.

So this year at the last minute I thought I’d give in to the inevitable.

And how I hate it!

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