Co-sleeping transitioning/safety q's

Hi! My little one just turned nine months today. We have been co-sleeping with him since about 5.5 months (in between us on the bed) -- he's in the 99th percentile for length and he outgrew his Halo FAST! It took us about half a month to find a crib we liked and then drive the two hours to pick it up from the nearest Ikea depot. In that time, he got really used to co-sleeping and we're struggling to break this habit. His crib is right next to our bed and we have not set up his own nursery/bedroom yet, though we are thinking to shift our guest room to his bedroom around one year.

Long story short -- aside from being inconvenient, co-sleeping with his has always been very safe and secure. Two early mornings ago, I was deep in sleep when I felt something on my legs. I sat up without opening my eyes and grabbed what turned out to be my son sleep-crawling! Our bed is high off the ground -- like over three feet. Unfortunately, my husband built our beautiful bed frame for me as a gift, and taking it apart to put our mattress on the ground would suck.

So what usually happens is we start him out in his crib and he does great for one to three hours. At some point he'll wake crying and it's really hard to re-settle him. We don't seem to be moving in the right direction with duration in the crib. I'm not ready to move the crib into a different room and let him cry it out. That seems really harsh to me. Did any of you go through this? Tips, resources? I'm literally contact napping with him right now -- should I start putting him in his crib during naps too?

I read three different sleep-training books while pregnant and none of them struck a chord. He was doing beautifully in his bassinet until we had that pause. I'm also open to hearing tips regarding how to make the bedroom safer while we go through this transition -- like pads to put around the bed -- brands? Etc.