Hi all. DD is almost one and normally a pretty good sleeper. Normally 
We’d always rocked her to sleep and then transferred her to her cot, and she would then sleep for 11-12 hours straight. So it worked well! Worked.
Well, in the past few weeks rocking stopped working. In fact it seemed to infuriate her! She would act sleepy (rub her eyes, yawn ect) so we’d get her ready for bed (feed, bath, PJs) and then rock her, but instead of falling asleep like usual she would thrash around in our arms, kick, and cry. This has been since she started walking. This would go on for hours. Literally hours. It got to the point where she wouldn’t go to sleep until 2/3am, and would then be up for the day at 6:30am. That, or she’d fall asleep at 7pm but then wake up every hour! Calpol and anbesol (in case it was her teeth) made no difference. I’m a full time uni student and my partner works full time, so needless to say we were utterly knackered! DD, usually very sunny and happy, was also very grumpy and tired. She didn’t like to be rocked for naps either, so was only napping for 20 minutes at a time. We were all miserable, so I knew something had to change for bedtime!
Since rocking seemed to infuriate her now, I decided to see what would happen if I got her ready for bed but then placed her in her cot whilst awake and didn’t interfere with her for a couple of minutes. I decided that if she cried for more than a minute or so I would go in and soother her.
Well, the first night she cried for a minute but then, just as I was going to go in, she fell asleep and slept for 12 hours! I thought it might have been a fluke, but we’ve been doing this for 5 nights now and every night she has cried for less than a minute (sometimes less than 30 seconds) and then fallen asleep and slept for 11/12 hours. We’ve also been doing this for naps and again, 30 seconds of crying followed by a two hour long nap. She is now a much much happier baby. Very smiley and playful like she used to be! And of course DP and I are much happier too because we’re getting a decent amount of sleep.
I’d always been vehemently against any kind of sleep training or controlled crying, thinking it was cruel. And we’ve been lucky that we’ve never needed to use it up until recently. But now we’ve been doing it, I’m happy at the improved sleep and DDs improved mood, but I’ve been lambasted on other parenting groups and called cruel and accused of harming DD and our bond by letting her cry for a minute at bedtime. It’s never been longer than a minute, and it’s never been a loud, desperate, ‘help me’ cry. If it was I’d be straight in there. It’s more of a grumpy grizzle. It’s still not nice to hear her cry even for a minute, but if it improves her sleep and mood?
Am I really that bad of a parent for letting DD cry for a minute before she goes to sleep? She is my first baby and I always try to do my best by her 
Thanks 