21 mth old reverting to cuddles to sleep for day sleep

Hi all,

just wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

My 21 month old has been great for his day sleep up until about 2 weeks ago - he had previously been happy to be put in his cot after a story (and without bottle) for his day sleep - he'd roll over and fall asleep on his own. However a few weeks ago we've started to have struggles with it - I've tried staying in the room but he'd scream and stand in the cot and bang his head against the (brick) wall (eek), and if I left him to cry for 5 mins at a time he'd just escalate - becoming distraught.

So I've gone back to his early baby days and cuddling him to sleep - it doesn't take long, maybe 10 or 15 minutes - I'm starting to wonder if I might need to keep this up now until he drops his day sleep altogether - a friend suggested he might just be needing more help "winding down" for the day sleep as he gets less sleepy and closer to dropping the sleep. I put him to bed anywhere between 11.30-2pm depending on the sort of morning he's had/how tired he seems.

He settles himself fine at night for his "big sleep" (usually sleeps through unless sick).

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this - is it a sign the dropping of the sleep is around the corner? or did you manage to get them back to self-settling?