DD is 10 months old and I'd say a fairly average sleeper. For background: she sleeps well overnight once down with maybe one or two quick wakes on a bad night on average, although obviously she has some much worse nights sometimes with teeth / colds etc. She goes down by half six (really, really struggle to get her down any later than this) and is up somewhere between 5 on a bad day and close to 7 on a good day. Her naps are so-so in the day. She fights sleep a lot and always has done, so I tend to just do her naps on the go (we walk a lot 
) and she'll take anywhere between one and three hours total daytime sleep.
My issue currently is getting her in her cot at bedtime. We have a good routine (bath, pyjamas and sleep sack, a quick story or few songs, bottle, bed). She is always clearly sleepy at this point. However, as soon as I try and put her into her cot with her dummy she becomes very awake and very hysterical. The only way to get her to sleep is to get her to sleep in the bed with us and then transfer her to her cot. I don't really mind this and this is what we've been doing for months now, but I haven't got the knack of getting her in her cot without waking her up and needing to start the whole process again - I'm quite short and the cot is quite high so it's really hard for me. DH can, and his preferred method is just for him to do bedtime, but he's been travelling for work recently with more travel to come and I've had really bad nights with her, so looking for a solution.
I tried gradual retreat a few months ago and it worked really well and really quickly but it all went out the window after some periods of teething, illness and holiday. I've tried it again but it is fairly impossible now she can stand and reach out and hold on to me.
Please can anyone advise? I keep reading miraculous things about the ferber method but she is already so upset to be in the cot before I've even left that I can't imagine doing it...