L.W.
around 2 years old (you can see one of my questions about her waking up TOO early) we had to push her bedtime back to 8 or 830. She also started to do similar things (screaming when we left and/or waking periodically) in the middle of the night. What worked for us is we said "oh Haley did you want to take a book in bed with you to read?" We also put her in her crib and taught her how to say the good night prayer (its like of like adding onto the normal routine... and HOLY MOLY it worked..never cried again (in about 3 months) we also have an aquarium in her crib that acts like a nightlight and plays music so she could look at her book and go softly to bed on her own..Her wakings in the middle of the night ignored unless I could tell she was really UP..and she was up and was scared. I went in and held her in the rocking for 3 mins and then I put her back to bed, with her book and we prayed again..that only happend once.
we are transitioning her to a twin bed this weekend. My plan is to start talking about the Easter bunny and if she sleeps in her bed ALL night the easter bunny will leave a treat in the morning....so if she sleeps, I plan on having a few jelly beans lead to a trail and at the end is a plastic egg with candy...she will only get 1 per day, every day (if she sleeps good) until Easter(and then she wont be overloaded with Candy ON the actual Easter day). ...that may be an idea for your 2 year old...mine is 28 months old now)