Sorry, this has almost certainly been raised before, so if there's a thread I've missed, please feel free to redirect me!
My 6 month old son sleeps well at night (recently started going down for 10-12 hours - yippee) but has almost never gone down for a daytime nap without me or DH cuddling him to sleep, followed by pantomime of stealthily putting him in his cot and sneaking out. This usually works and he can sleep for up to an hour and a half.
However, if he wakes, he won't or can't self-soothe back to sleep, and there's absolutely no way that I can put him down when still awake, however tired he is.
We've been trying to leave him to cry, but DH and I are divided about how long to leave him - regular intervals of 15 min/ pat/ leave again, until he sleeps; or do we leave him (checking every so often that he's not got a foot wedged somewhere awkward) for a set period of time - i.e. as long as he'd usually nap for, before getting him up and carrying on as before, whether he's slept or not. Hope that makes sense.
I'm really worried that if he doesn't nap, this will impact on his night sleep, so I feel caught between carrying on cuddling as we're doing to ensure this, or risking the night sleep by training him for day-time naps.
He's also going to start part-time nursery in a couple of months when I go back to work, so I'd like to try and get him into a good habit before then.
Any advice or suggestions really appreciated - at the moment I'm tired, grumpy and not really sure how best to go.
Thanks!