Starting to co-sleep at 16 months?

[BirdIsland]

Is this a ridiculous thing to do?!

My DD has always been a bad sleeper, and even after she started sleeping better at just after 12 months, she would still regularly wake at 5am. I got into the habit of bringing her into my bed at that point so I could feed her while I dozed - turns out she's pretty keen on sleeping in our bed and now screams if she wakes in the night unless I take her into my bed 😭

Would it be foolish to have got this far without co-sleeping, to start doing it? I don't want her in my bed all night though, is she too young to understand that if she wakes (say at midnight) and I tell her to lay back down she has to stay in her cot? I actually love the baby snuggles for a couple of hours early morning, and the extra couple of hours sleep is heaven, but I don't want to share my bed all night with a wriggly baby!

Hmm... I'd say set yourself a time, like 4 or 5 am, and if she wakes up before, put her back in the cot, if after, take her in your bed.
I've been doing this and while it doesn't always work, at least we have some kind of system and our DD sort of understands that if I put her back in the cot, it's the middle of the night and she needs to sleep (rather than feed, or wake up etc). She's 18 months.

If you don't want to co-sleep all night, it's a slippery slope, I wouldn't do it...