Conflicted about DD having her own room

[physmom]

DD is 2 years old, she's weaned and for the most part sleeps through the night (although she sometimes wakes when she has a nightmare or to pee). We recently moved and for the first time since she was born she has her own room.  We also upgraded our own bed from a full-size to a king with the move.  As of right now (assuming it's not too hot outside since DD's room doesn't have a ceiling fan yet) we put her to sleep in her own room and then move her to our bedroom once DH or myself goes to bed. 

Ok, so that's the background.  DH and I have talked some about letting her stay in her own bed all night long.  Right now we're scared because of safety reasons.  We don't have a baby gate (and she's been able to figure out ones at friend's houses before so we're wondering how much that would help anyways?) and there are definitely some things that she could get into if she was allowed free range of the house at night by herself (e.g. we live very high in an apt building with a balcony.  while it's covered, it's a mesh thing and we've caught DD on more than one occasion trying to stick things through it to drop down below, not good! ).  Also now that we finally have a huge bed the annoyance of having DD in it with us is gone.  We actually really enjoy having her there (especially since she pretty much sleeps through the night now!). 

However, I do feel bad moving her at night (we prefer to keep her in her own bed before we sleep because our bed is pretty high and she has fallen off it once when we weren't in bed yet ) and I wonder if we wait to move her into her own bed than maybe it'll be a harder transition down the road?  We want to have at least one more kid and since DD flops like crazy at night we'd definitely have to transition her before we have another baby. 

So what do you think? She would transition her now or wait? We can't afford to buy a baby gate or anything for another 2 months at least...
 

[Birdie B.]

I don't have any advice, but we're going through the same thing right now (minus the high apartment and balcony).  I think I am ready to move my 2 year old to her own room, and I"m due with #2 in August.  But we have queen size with her toddler bed in our room, and we love sleeping with her.  I know my husband would really miss her at night (he works long hours, so co-sleeping is one of his favorite bonding times).  I do want her to sleep in her own room to prevent issues when the baby comes - I am nervous about them both sleeping in our bed.  So I can commiserate - I was going to post a thread like this soon!

[MommyofHero]

One option is to remove your bed frame for now and just have the mattress on the floor. That way you can tuck your daughter in your bed at night and not have to worry about moving her or her falling off the bed and hurting herself. That's what we've done and we actually find it more comfortable this way. 

Just before the new baby came, we added an extra mattress pushed up next to ours to make an extra-long family bed. Both me and DH sleep in between the toddler and the infant so there's no worrying about the infant's safety while sleeping.