Ellie, I used "The Baby Whisperer" religiously with my DD and it totally worked for me. She was sleeping through the night in 5 weeks and we had a perfect little routine going. What Tracy Hogg doesn't do (like Gina Ford) is try to impose a routine on the baby. Her idea is that first you decide what general type of baby you have (Angel Textbook, Spirited, Touchy etc) and then observe your baby really closely over the first few weeks using a method she calls E.A.S.Y - this stands for Eating, Activity, Sleeping and You. The crux being that she wants to encourage you to learn to interpret your baby's cries (because they don't all mean "I'm hungry!"...sometimes it's because of over stimulation, or wind) and most importantly never to let your baby sleep straight after a feed unless it's in the middle of the night. It Eats, then you do some kind of Activity which let's face it at that age will be a nappy change, or a walk in the buggy, then you put it down to Sleep leaving time for YOU. By doing this the baby learns to sleep on its own rather than being lulled to sleep by feeding. This is really important because it builds self-soothing skills and means you are not accidently teaching it to associate breast (or bottle) with sleep.
The pick up/put down method is designed to encourage the same thing - independent soothing - where you first WAIT to decide what kind of cry your baby is using, and then if it isn't hunger you pick it up, comfort it until it stops crying (IE. you have fulfilled the need) and then you put it back down again. There are varying degrees, so you may pick it up and end up holding it for some time, put it down and not move from the side of the cot. It cries when you put it down so you pick it up but it doesn't take as long for the baby to calm down. So you put it back and edge a little closer away from the cot. Doing this takes patience at the very beginning but I promise in only a few days you are literally putting the baby down at night after a bath and it goes to sleep completely on its own. Brilliant I say.
She suggest you keep a little journal of the EASY method and by the end of the first week or so you have a wonderfully clear pattern of when your baby is more/less hungry, when it is most awake, when it needs to sleep - and once you have these patterns then deciphering its cries becomes much easier.
I have a spreadsheet that I have printed out as a log which I intend to use for the first month or so that I can email to anyone out there if you'd like to use it.
That's my experience, I'm sure others out there may feel differently...but it really worked for me and I can really recommend it.