i haven't read the responses, but with my dd, she went thru a horrible bedtime stage and night waking etc at around 2.5yrs, i found it helped a lot to talk about it during the day, and to explain what was expected, and why, and what was unacceptable... for example when she goes to bed, she must stay in her room and not come out, but she is allowed to have the lamp on and read books etc until she is tired.... if she wakes in the night she is to try to go back to sleep, but if she feels she needs me, if she has had a dream etc, she can come and get me....

we talked about it alot, about being a big girl, about needing a good sleep at night so she isn't grumpy etc, and about needing to sleep in her own bed.... i found that if we spoke about it at a nuetral time during the day, then at bedtime i would go over the bedtime rules again, lots of repetition, and i would get her to repeat things in her own words as well, and ask questions and get her to answer them.... i would also explain what would happen if she did wake and call out etc... ie mummy will come in once to see that you are okay, but then the door will be shut and you need to go back to sleep..... she has understood it pretty well (still tries to play up occassionally, but she understands she's being 'naughty')... for me if she was doing it at 3.5yrs i would get tough with her, as i think that at that age they are well old enough to understand rules and what is and isn't good behaviour, but thats just me... she's never been a particularly good sleeper so as soon as she was old enough to understand what i was saying, i got fairly strict, as when she was a baby obviously i couldn't expect her to understand, but as soon as she was around 2 and could talk and understand what i was saying, then that was it for me.....

good luck, hope you find something that works....