DS is quite an active sleeper and is often sideways, wrong way round etc in the cot - and of course, hitting his head on the bars.

Just wondering if a pillow might help keep him in the right spot? He will often lie on a pillow or cushion on the floor or our bed, and say 'nigh nigh'...

I can't really remember at what age we introduced a pillow to DD - I think it was a bit before 12 months when she started showing an interest in our pillows of a morning.

Any thoughts?

Also any tips to get him to sleep longer than 5:00/5:30am would be nice LOL.

I have never introduced a pillow till my kids have gone into their own beds. I have a 3.5 yr old and also a 22 mnth old who sleeps just like your DS. My 5 yr old use to do this but settled. What i have done is taken one side of the cot off for them when they got to this stage, and used a bed rail with mesh instead. Worked a treat.

Sorry can't help with the 5am stuff, all my kids have done this till about 3. Now the 5 & 3 i have to wake but the baby still is a 5amer no matter what i tried. I feel your pain.

My DS is also an all over the cot sleeper, still at 2.5! When we put a pillow in i think it helped a little, but not as much as i had hoped, these days it's often hurled out of the cot or he puts his feet on it
This is what made me try a pillow too. I'd say go for it, it can't hurt and will hopefully help at least a little.

As for getting him to sleep longer, well I think you can work out why im on EB this early on a saturday

What about a cot bumper to stop hitting head?

My DS is 14 months and still all over the cot. It doesn't seem to bother him though. I am worried about moving him to a bed at the end of this year though - hopefully he will grow out of it by then (We will need to cot for next bubs).

We don't use pillows until they go into a bed either. The early wake up could be because of sunlight?? A cheap way to test the theory is to buy some black cardboard and tape it to the window. It worked for my GF's 2 year old who was waking at the crack of dawn.

We leave a few books (soft) in the cot and DS wakes and starts playing/reading them. Just don't put noisy ones in there - nothing like being woken by a fire engines siren at 5am!

BTW: Your DS's name is gorgeous - my eldest is Hayden!