New Bedtime Routine

So, Addison's bedtime routine has slowly become a nightmare for us. It was really becoming apparent that wrestling a screaming Addison every night and having to hold her, pat her, rock her, and shush her was really draining me. Then, after holding her for about 30 minutes (until I felt she was really asleep) and then laying her down, only to have her wake up again in 20 minutes and have to start the process all over again.
The first night of the new routine was interesting. I really didn't discuss this beforehand much with Steve, because I am the one who puts her to bed every night. So, basically I just told him, "hey, tonight I am laying her down awake and am going to let her cry. I'll check on her a few times, but I can't keep holding her all night trying to get her to sleep." I put Addison to bed that night, awake, and of course she started crying immediately. So, for the next 5 minutes Steve kept asking me if he could go in there. He was getting really worried about Addison; he didn't think letting her cry was a very good idea. So, we got out our baby manual that we got from our parenting class and we looked up "methods for putting baby to sleep."
The manual offered 3 choices: 1- no-crying method: try and stimulate baby throughout the day, so they are really tired at night, have someone other than the mother put the baby to bed (interesting. . . ), hold, rock, pat, soothe, etc. So, Steve is like, "hey, let's do that!" I told him, "That's what I HAVE been doing!!!" He started offering to put her to bed himself (I think we all know he would only last at that for like a day), and I told him, "no, we are not doing that option." Option 2: crying method: Lay baby down awake, after 5 mins. of crying, go in for 1 minute to soothe and comfort (do not pick baby up), leave room, if baby is still crying wait 10 minutes then check on baby if she is still crying, next would be 15 mins. then 20 mins and so on. The 3rd option: crying method: Lay baby down awake, close door, leave the monitor on and just leave the baby alone all night knowing that she is safe and needs to comfort herself to sleep.
Steve and I easily agreed that option 2 was the one for us. We've been doing that now for about 4 days (or nights I should say) and it's going pretty good. Addison is finally sleeping almost the whole night and usually only starts fussing once during the night. It is a little rough on me emotionally putting her to bed because she is crying and I know she wants to be held, but I just try and remind myself that she was crying before at night when I held her too. Here's hoping that this method continues to work for us and that our little family gets some good rest!