Not the original person to post above but can you link to some information outlining this. Everything I have ever read describes it as follows:

You can withdraw contributions from a Roth IRA if the account and contributions are (5) years old. As (5) year old contributions, they are considered qualified distributions. If less than (5) years, you will be subject to a penalty unless certain criteria are met (first time home purchase, disabled, qualified education). I mean this is directly from Schwab unless I am reading it incorrectly. What's weird is that I have heard time and time again that I can withdraw Roth IRA contribution after (5) years before 59.5. However, Schwab certainly doesn't appear to imply this. Neither does RothIRA.com

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Now I am super confused. As this was my plan....Use a combo of Roth and Tradition to decrease my tax bracket in retirement/use Roth to pay for the 1st (5) years of retirement while waiting for the Roth ladder from our 401k.