gave up on baskets a long time ago ;)

Since day one. She now tells us when it's time to go to bed - usually too early.

Presley slept with me his whole life and when we lost him :( I missed his little body so much. When we got Ripley, we knew she'd sleep in the bed. She really likes to be on top of me. She sleeps curled up on my shoulder and her head tends to creep towards my neck. Not the most comfy for me...I usually move her after a bit and then she crawls to the top of my pillow above my head...

:D Harry was the same....slept in his (very big!) crate until he was about a year old....then for some reason it all changed :confused: :D

Now he's in bed with us every night...and he's HUUUUGE in comparison to many of the others....and yes, we did have to buy a bigger bed - "More room for ME", Harry thought.....:eek: :dogzzz: :D

Our 3 sleep with us. I think we started after they were potty/pad trained and could use the bed stairs.

After having Kirby, a yorkie that slept with his head on pillow spooning my husband I was determined that Lola would sleep in crate in our room but not on the bed. I am a restless sleeper and had to many near misses of squishing Kirby so I was nervous. Even though it was working well and Lola would sleep quietly all night long in her crate my husband hated not having her in the bed with us. So we started bringing her up on the bed. Most of the time she sleeps between us at the foot of the bed, since she loves sleeping in her own beds during the day, I now bring a small bed with raised sides up onto our bed and after a couple of minuets of cuddling, she heads down to her bed on our bed and hardly moves all night. If your dog is the type that would sleep in a bed on your bed I highly recommend that, I think it keeps them in one place and makes it much safer, not long ago Lola went through a stage where she seemed to want to sleep on the edge of the outside of the bed, I was so afraid that she would either fall off or I would roll over or move my feet and kick her off. I would keep picking her up and putting her back in her spot so she finally gave up and just stayed put. Even though we have carpet I am still afraid she could get hurt if she got tossed out. When I stay at my sister's house her guest bed is smaller than mine, plus she has wood floors and no rug by the beg so I make Lola sleep in a bed on the floor, she did not like it at first but eventually she gives in

Oscar and Toby have slept in their crate since their first day home (now 6 months old).. they took to it really well with them being together... Now all I have to do is say "bedtime" and they are in their crate getting cosy like a flash!

I wanted to say one thing about pet stairs, I know they work great for many people with small dogs so I though I would give it a try, but in less than a month I moved them away from our bed.

Once Lola realized she could get on the bed on her own she started going up there whenever she wanted, which I did not like, because it gave her access to our night stands and anything left on them, she also loved to be in on the activity of making the bed, that was a hoot for her and impossible for me. I would often find wet slimy toys tucked between my pretty satin throw pillows. Now instead of sleeping when the lights went out, she would jump off the bed, which she had not ever done before and run back up the stairs with one of her squeaker toys. So before bed we would have to spend time sweeping the floor of all her toys. Like most young pups she is a fast hyper little thing so she started by passing a few of the steps and then instead of using the steps to come back down she just started jumping down, and multiple times, during the day she would bring one of her toys up on the bed and then push it off, jump down to get it and then run back up the steps to do it all over again. That's when I realized pet steps were not a good idea for us. So now we lift her up on the bed once a day when it is time to go to sleep and I lift her down in the morning, it's odd but from the day I took the steps away she stopped jumping down.

I'm shopping bed stairs at the moment. It's a necessity with a Yorkie I think. I'm noticing that they are much more petite bones and less sturdy than my shihtzu and I was nervous when my 7 lbs and 10 lbs Tzus would jump off the bed so I'd freak out if little Darla got brave and took the plunge. That's why we keep her in the middle of us so we can grab her should she start getting curious about the edges. What stairs do you use? It's been tough to find suitable stairs that aren't so deep. Her short legs can't get up really tall steps. She's only expected to be 4-5 lbs so I don't think she'll ever have very long legs.

take a look at my post above, for me pet steps lead to more jumping, other people have also told me that while their pets use it to climb up they often just jump down. But all dogs are different so you never know what will happen. The kind I have are made from high density foam and covered with faux fur, so they are sturdy but not slippery.

I read your post so I may put off buying the stairs for now and see if we are better off without them but I might end up getting some if not for the bed for the couch. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm definitely keeping it in mind. :)

That is sort of what I did, I now keep the stairs next to hope chest that sits under a window, she now uses them to get up there so she can look out but most of the time jumps down but it not nearly as high up as the bed is so I am not as worried. Perhaps it's me but I really don't want her to have access to my bed unless I am in it, so lifting her up and down once a day is not that much of a pain to do. You might also trying putting a little bed for her on your bed, I think this keeps them from roaming all over the place. For me it took a while to figure all these things, because LOL I did not find out about YT till Lola was full grown. A lot of the stuff I read here now would have saved me time and money:)

Wolfie slept with us from day 1. I tried a crate up on a chair near my bed so I could soothe him but that didn't work, so I opened it and put him in bed with us. Second night tried leaving the crate door open and blocked off the chair so he could only climb into the bed and not off the chair, and he came into the bed and slept. Since then he always sleeps with us. We got him just shy of 8 weeks old. LOVE this dog!!

Chloe sleeps in her bed besides my bed. When I wake up in the morning she's at the bottom of the bed jumping and trying to get up, lol. I tried to put her on the bed but if I let go of her I think she would jump off the bed and I'm too scared about that because she's really small. She also likes to lick the pillows if she's on my bed, she's obsesseddddddd! LOL

When you let your babies roam around the bed did you know that they wouldn't jump off? I can't let Chloe roam around freely on the couch or bed because of the risk of her falling off. She can't actually jump up on the couch or bed though unless I pick her up.

how big?
 

how big is chloe? my yorkie was 2 pounds 13 ounces when we got him and he didn't really roam around too much, but did once jump off and he was fine. now at 5 pounds he can jump onto the bed and off so it's fantastic because on weekends when i want to sleep in - he jumps off bed goes to his pee pad and does his business then comes back to sleep with us!