Depends on the age, clearly new borns and i would say up to 8 months cry because they do need something something, but around 1 my daughter wouldnt wanna nap would scream and yell, so she got left in her room with the door almost shut until she would go to sleep, she soon learned that no matter what a nap was gonna happen and would just take one. Shes now 3 and when shes being a brat she gets sat in her room for 3 mins or until shes done crying... and acting up.
I've tried it and my daughter just works herself up too much to calm her down. What I do instead is set a limit of a few minutes, comfort her, and repeat, that way she doesn't get too worked up but she understands that it's sleepy time