Ferber: Friend or Foe?

UPDATE: When I put her down for her nap today she didn't fuss at all and was asleep by the time I had made my bed and gathered my clothes for my shower! :) Hopefully it keeps up!

Normally I'm not one to read a bunch of books on how to raise my child, but Dr. Richard Ferber's method on helping your child sleep better is a somewhat controversial, yet very popular and effective method, so I got the book from the library and did a little research. Not that Joey has major sleep problems, I just rock her for a few minutes before I lay her down in her crib, usually awake, and it normally goes over well. But as she continues to grow and my back tolerance and the rocking chair don't, we decided it was probably time for her to go to sleep on her own.
For those of you who aren't familiar with "Ferber-izing," the basics are: laying your child down awake and let him/her cry basically, and you go in every x minutes to reassure them, but don't pick him/her up or anything. Each time you go in to comfort them you increase the time between visits (there's a chart) and each night they continue to get longer as well. Its only supposed to take about a week, so we'll see. In the past if Joey has been quite tired I've tried a couple times just laying her right down to see what she does, and of course she cries. She didn't get snuggle time with mommy (that's what I like to think at least), so I pick her up and rock her for a few minutes.
Well, tonight we tried it for the first time, and fortunately she didn't have as long of a nap as normal, so she was pretty tired. I only had to go in there 3 times, and before that last time her cries were getting pretty few and far between. She had her head and arms hanging over the side of the crib, obviously exhausted. It was one of those things where you can't help but laugh because its so pathetic. So I laid her down again and left, and sure enough, a few more wimpers and we didn't hear her again. Hopefully it continues to go fairly smoothly and she can do it on her own soon. I've been wondering if she's getting big (old) enough for a toddler bed, but I definitely want her to be able to go to sleep on her own before we start that.