Questions about day sleeps

Ok, we've been having huge sleep issues with our almost 9 month old. We seem to have night time back on track, however day sleeps are totally stressing me out! To settle, we are doing the bath-book-bottle-bed routine at night, and she goes into her cot awake, and we pat the mattress until she goes to sleep. I'm trying a similar thing for day sleeps - other than the bath of course. But during the day, she just ends up screaming and I give up. For most of last week, I ended up timing sleeps for being in the car or just putting her in the pram and gonig for a walk.

So, how do others get their LO's to sleep during the day?
Is it bad habit to fall asleep in the pram/car?
Any suggestions as to why she should hate her cot so much in the day time?
A CYHN suggested that she may be trying to drop one of her sleeps and go to just one big one in the middle of the day a bit early - anyone else had this? if its this, how do i manage it without tears and stress?

It all depends on what you can handle.
We had mega daytime sleep dramas with DS during the day from about 5 months. Night time was awesome but daytime he was really unsettled and didnt like sleeping much at all.
As far as I was concerened, a decent amount of sleep was a decent amount of sleep so I really wasnt fussed if that meant driving to visit my gf who lives an hour away - I knew he would sleep in the car - or putting him in the pram to go for a long walk to settle him.
We did try patting to sleep etc, it took about 3 weeks for a real difference, but there was no miracle cure for us.

As far as it being a bad habit - its only bad of you cant/dont want to keep it up. I dont know many older kids who only sleep in cars or prams though ;)

Is using a sling an option for you, that might help with sleeping too, and still let you get on with other things.