Settling baby to sleep

Hi everyone... my baby is getting better and better at sleeping, we even get the odd night of sleeping through.. but its taking ages to get her to settle off to sleep at the moment... at least half an hour from when we put her down.. its taking half an hour at minimum for her to fall asleep.....if she's calm when I put her into her cot I walk out to give her a chance to self settle, but mainly I pat and shush and keep her calm, attempting to leave the room if she's settled.... I can't work out if her taking ages to get off to sleep is over tired or under tired??? She wakes between 6 and 7 in the morning, had two naps during the day - one around 9.30 and another around 2.30 (total nap duration around 2.5 hours) and we try to put her down between 7 and 8 (we've been trying to figure out the 'right' bedtime)... any suggestions?

Our wee girl is about the same age and generally goes to bed at 7pm.

She self settles and it can take her awhile to get to sleep at night. We put her to bed and leave the room and then she will talk or what sounds more like grizzles herself to sleep. If she is really exhausted she can be asleep in 5 to 10 minutes but usually she is making noise for about half an hour.

She has never taken to a dummy but she does have a comforter blankie/toy thing that she sucks on which we introduced when she stopped being wrapped at around six months. The benefit of the blankie comforter is that she can find it herself during the night due to it's size.

Good luck with the self settling and unfortunately I think it can take a bit of trial and error.

I had MAJOR issues with DD at about that age and nothing I did would help her settle so I created a sleep plan based on a couple of recommendations. It has been successful on the most part although I am currently feeding her once at night. Plan went as follows.

Naptime
We have a routine that lasts 5-10 mins.
Check nappy
Sing twinkle twinkle little star on the way to bedroom
Close curtains
Into sleeping bag
Read 2-3 stories
Into bed hand bunny (her cuddly toy)
Say nun-night and leave

If she grizzle cries wait 5 mins then check if still crying lay her down if sitting or standing say nun-night and leave. Wait 10m then check if still crying, then check every 15 until asleep.

If she was just grizzling I'd leave her as she often fell asleep if all was quiet I resisted the urge to check. Each check lasted less than 30secs and I was in and out, only touched her to lay her down.

My plan was I'd do this for an hour then get her up for a bit then tried again. If she still wouldn't sleep then I'd go for a drive or put her in the stroller for a walk. I never got to that point though.

It took about 4 days and she was going to bed happy for day naps.

Bedtime
Routine lasts about 30mins
Bath
massage/creams (she has ezcema)
PJs and Sleeping bag
Feed in lounge
Say good night to everyone
Into bedroom for stories (2-3)
Into bed hand bunny say nun-night and leave

At night I would do as above for checking after her bedtime routine for as long as it took to get her asleep. But again I never had to do that as she settle to sleep for the night well. I also did it for all night wakings and she now wakes once while before she was waking 2-4 times a night to feed.

Hope that makes sense and helps