Jackson slept in his crate on a nightstand next to my bed for the first 3 weeks. He was getting up 1-2x in the middle of the night to potty. One night, I put his crate ON my actual bed and left the door open.. he slept thru the entire night. From that night on, he was on my bed!
Never once had an accident and he's 1 year old. NEVER would I encourage putting a pee pad on the bed - gross. I don't even like pee pads tho so I may be biased, lol.