Nap time nasties with 7 month old

[GlummyMummy]

My daughter has recently started sleeping through the night after we ditched her dummy and encouraged her to self soothe. She goes down no problem awake after her last feed. She occasionally wakens during the night but we never have to go to her as she always settles herself quickly.

The daytime naps are a totally different story though. As the night sleep has improved, the daytime naps have got worse!!

Even when she is really tired and rubbing her eyes, and you have got her into a calmish state, as soon as you put her into her cot she starts howling. She is so upset and panicky she nearly chokes herself. Sometimes picking her up again helps, other times it doesn't. This afternoon for example, it took an hour's crying before she finally went to sleep at 2.45pm,having been up for 4.5hours since her morning nap.

It's awful seeing her so upset and I've come to dread nap times. I'm worried she is going to have bad associations with sleep and start becoming a cry-baby throughout the day.

I'm wondering if feeds have anything to do with how easily they go down for afternoon nap. Do others give their babies solids before a nap, or just milk or neither?

Anyone with any words of wisdom?