Do you hold your DC until they are fully asleep before laying them down?

Happycouple

We have established a .bedtime. right now with DS...around 8pm.  We hold him till he is fully asleep and then lay him down.  During the day i can smoetimes lay him down drowsy and he will doze off on his own (which shocks me as DS #1 didnt do this till he was atleast 4 months old).  But at night and when he wakes up in the middle of the night we have to do this or choose to do this...anyone else?  It also often takes us 20-40 minutes to get him to fall back asleep when he wakes up to eat in the middle of the night...