Thanks for your replies and sorry for being a cranky pants last night.

I have found a few things that have helped lately, but then worry if i am creating more issues i will have to deal with later.

Feeding bub to sleep and then carrying her to bed rarely works anymore for naps. BUT feeding her on our bed to sleep and then sneaking out can allow her to have a nap (20 mins up to 60 mins) if she is really tired. I have her cot up against the bed and put pillows on the other side but she is starting to get mobile when she wakes and it is becoming unsafe.

My DH works shiftwork and so when i am not sleeping as well, the bed is not available (for safe co-sleeping). This morning i moved a mattress in to DDs bedroom on the floor, and she had a nap there (which was good!) after me feeding her on it.

I am concerned though that again i am setting up 'routines' that are difficult for others to follow so i am left with difficulty in being able to leave her with anyone else.

I keep saying 'this too shall pass' but wonder when that will happen.

Do i just say, well she needs a sleep and do whatever to make that happen or work on other ways of achieving sleep even though in the mean time it will be messing her sleep up? The difficulty is that if she has a sleep and then wakes (ie i feed her to sleep on couch and try to transfer her to cot and she wakes) she is then up for long time- there is no resettling.

When thinking about night times- the path of least resistance is to get her up again if she wakes (if it is sometime between 7pm and 11pm). She is happy to crawl around floor or play with me or DH. it is only if we try to get her to bed she cracks it. eventually she just calms down and shows she is ready for sleep again. I feed and she goes to sleep.

Human Bean- i have been looking for something that projects images on to the ceiling. I don't want noise, but stars or something gently moving across ceiling i reckon could kinda hypnotise her to sleep. Is this what yours did? Where did you get it?

ZF- Thanks. She is an incredibly alert little kid. I reckon i will be hiding the ladder in a few years too!