Read the sleepy signs.

For the first few weeks, I found sleep was easy - she would feed and nod off. Then when she became a big more alert I was really determined to get her to self-settle. So we'd do the feed - play -sleep thing. I'd watch her really closely while she was playing for signs of tiredness and when I thought she was getting tired (lack of eye contact, gazing off), I would pick her up and say soothing things to her like "shhh... sleepy time now" over and over again. Then wrap her, rock her fora bit (but NEVER to sleep) put her in her crib and keep saying "sleepy time".

Gradually as she got older, her sleepy signs changed to thumb in mouth (that was GREAT -so easy to spot) and I dropped the wrapping because she just spend ages trying to get out of it.

Now her sleepy signs have changed AGAIN and thumb in mouth is not as accurate as it used to be because now it can mean hurty gums too! So now I watch for gazing into space again or if she's been up for a while and starts getting whingy/cranky that means she's been up for too long.

So basically my advice is let your baby show you when they're tired and then "getting them to sleep" is so much easier.