Need help! My almost 1 year old son is a bear to put to sleep!

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My son is almost 1 year old and is terrible at going to bed for both naps and at bedtime. He can be so tired that he can hardly stand, but he will fight us trying to put him to bed. Once he finally gives in, he needs to be rocked totally asleep before we can even lay him down in his crib. We've tried putting him down drowsy but awake like a lot of the baby books say, but this always backfires. He almost instantly pops right up and starts screaming. Now he's all worked up and it takes another 20-30min to get him back to sleep. Once he is asleep, it's a crapshoot as to how long he will stay down. He still is waking up multiple times throughout the night and sometimes he won't go back in his crib even though he's asleep almost instantly in our arms. It's totally random because once in a while he'll surprise us and sleep through the night or take a 2 and a half hour nap. Anyone else had this problem? How did you get your children to have some kind of sleep schedule? Thanks for you help.