Hiya and welcome to the boards!!
Ok, first of all I recommend that you read the sleep interview with Tracy at the top of the sleep forum. That should answer all your pat/shh questions. She explains it better than I could, and she's pretty thorough in how to do it.
Second, if you can get a hold of it, try and get Tracy's 3rd book, it goes into great detail about methods. I've never been able to get a hold of it, but I understand that a lot of moms on this forum use it extensively.
As for the crib, is she rolling over at all or moving around? If not (and I might get burned at the stake for this), it might be ok right now to keep the side down if you think it will wake her up. When she starts moving around is really when you need to start worrying about the crib side. Keep wedges on either side of her. Hopefully by the time you really need that crib side up she will be trained. You can lay her down width wise in the crib if you like. Personally, I wish I had a crib with a side that came down
It would make things easier.
OR, you could try putting it back up when she's in deep sleep if you're not comfortable with that. It takes 20 mins to settle for deep sleep. When you see your lo breathing very shallow, and her limbs are limp, she's in deep sleep. Normally it's not real easy to wake a baby in deep sleep. I might suggest a white noise machine of some sort (fan works well) for her room so she gets use to some noise, and a sudden noise doesn't startle her awake.
Hope this helps!
*HUGS*
Sonya =P
