Hi April,
There's a case similar to yours thoroughly described in the book "baby whisperer solves all your problems" and also "the baby whisperer for toddlers" has plans to remove toddler from parents bed. YOu might want to have a read first to make a general idea of a plan.
To help you design a plan, we'd need to take a look at your ds's schedule or at least an approximate of what his usual day looks like to see if he's sleeping the amount of time he needs according to his age and understand if we're facing only an independent sleep issue or it's also related to overtiredness or lack of sleep. A general overview to nap times, nap lenghts, night sleep, routines etc.
You mention he's on your bed since last year. Prior to that, was he sleeping on his own?
For a start, you can encourage him during daytime to have some playtime alone at his crib, so he can associate crib to a fun place to be. Play peekaboo while he's inside, put his favourite toys and then make a quick excuse to leave like oops i forgot to turn off the lights, be back in asecond, and be back in a second, so he knows that you might leave but will never abandon him. Let him have loveys/stuffed animals at his crib and talk to him a lot about "putting teddies to bed", design a long wind down routine and play with him to "bathe" the toys etc.
Since he's been sleeping with you for so long, I would suggest Gradual Withdrawal as a good techinque for sleep training. IT might suit you best since it's very gentle on the separation issue. Take a look at it on the FAQ Section in the Teaching Independent Sleep board and let us know what you think and if you think it'll suit you guys.
Good luck and keep us posted to come up with more advice!
