I forget how old Steph was when I gave her a toy to try and get her to sleep, but maybe around the one year mark, so I would think its fine. As Sunshine said, not something huge. Also I would say that it is harder to get kids out of the co-sleeping habit when they are older. The Man let the Boy climb into our bed every weekend (since he was four!!!!!!) and he would still come in to bed at eight or nine y.o. when he would wake up early in the morning. Hated that!

For a night light, we put a dimmer switch on the light switch, that worked really well for us. You just can't have a dimmer switch on a flouro globe (the energy saving ones) I think.