how do i know when to put 8 month old to bed?

Ive always struggled with my baby's cues but i swear as he gets older its getting harder. We spent two months teaching him to self settle using responsive settling & now its going out the window :(

For his naps i go loosely off awake times & also watch for cues. I see him rub his eyes & he starts to get cranky so i put him in bed. Then he starts playing in his cot, rolling around, sitting up, blowing rasberries etc so i leave him & then after a while he starts screaming & will not settle so i usually end up having to get him up.

however, if i wait a bit after i see those cues when i put him in bed he just starts screaming straight away & i end up sitting trying to pat him to sleep for an hour.

im ripping my hair out here, i dont understand what im doing wrong. I havent changed anything. A couple of weeks ago he did tired cues, id put him to bed & he self settled within 5 minutes by himself. Now we are back to huge battles, spending all day trying to force him to go to sleep & dealing with the hysterical overtired screaming.

We had significant sleep issues from birth which is why we taught him to self settle. Im not looking for other ways to get him to go to sleep - trust me, you name it, we've tried it in the first 6 months of his life.

you could try putting him down a little earlier. I find with my DS2 if he is rubbing his eyes he is over tired at that point, and My DS2 doesn't really show early sleep cues. I have a rough idea of awake time that I go off rather than sleep cues.

at that age he was probably doing 2.5hr wake up time?

it is also possibly he is going through a wonder week where he is developmentally changing and is just going through a fussy period. You may find if you change nothing it will all go back to normal in a week or so.

I have 3 kids and still cant work it out, so don't beat yourself up.

hopefully someone else has more helpful suggestions.