Toilet training-help please!

[Poppyred85]

Ds is nearly 3 1/2. We have been toilet training since the end of October and he seemed to get the hang of going for a wee in the potty/toilet pretty quickly as long as we took him to go. 8 months on and we don't seem to be much further forward. He doesn't often tell me when he needs to go- usually only if we're doing something he's not interested in e.g when we're doing the food shopping. We seemed to have got to the point where he would tell us if he needed a poo until he had a quite long bout of diarrhoea about 6 weeks ago and we're now back to him sometimes telling us he needs to go, other times just doing it in his pants. I find this massively frustrating. I'm sure he knows when he needs to go but often if you ask him he says no and then 2 minutes later wets or soils his pants. We've done reward charts etc but it doesn't seem to help. Most recently i've told him he can have a reward if he tells me that he needs to go and then goes, rather than just for doing it in the toilet when we take him. This morning he went to the loo for a wee (at my insistence before i had a showeer- if i dont get him to go before then he often wets/soils when i'm showering and he is in his room with the stairgate closed) and said he didn't need a poo. Less than 5 minutes later he calls me to say he's done a poo in his pants. I got quite cross as i think he does know when he needs to go, he's just not bothering to tell me and i'm fed up of having to repeatedly wash pants, trousers etc that have only been on for 5 minutes!!
We have a toilet upstairs and downstairs, both with a stool for him to get up on but have put the potty away to encourage him to use the toilet.
I don't know what to do to move forwards. i get him to take his wet things off when he has weed and say things like "oh this would have been much quicker if you went in the toilet, you'd be able to go back to playing much quicker" but it doesn't seem to help. Should we stop getting him to go so he experiences being wet and will learn that way or is this just the way it is with some of them? He's going to start pre-school in September for 1 day a week (already goes to a different nursery 2 days a week) and i'm worried he'll still be doing this then. He shows no signs at all of being dry/not soiling at night. He was 10 weeks premature but no longer sees a paediatrician and developmentally a bit slower physically but mentally very bright- he's started learning to read. No problems with constipation either.

Anyone got any words of wisdom?

[BotBotticelli]

I read about someone on here who made their son of a simile age strip down and have him a cold shower "to clean him up properly" when he pooed himself. Being nice and friendly all the way through (and not cold enough to hurt him obviously - not talking about torture here! Just cool enough to be an unpleasant experience...) and I think he pretty soon got the idea to tell you when he needed a poo.....??

Or my friends son had a similar problem with pooing and reward charts weren't helping. So she went to the pound shop and brought 10-12 little presents (£1 each) wrapped them up in shiny paper and put them in a present box on a shelf he could see but couldn't reach. And told him every time he did a poo on the loo (and asked to go) he could choose a present from the box...,worked a treat. Turned out he didn't care about stars enough but actual toys did the trick.

Or could you just think fuck jt and put him back in pull ups?! You've got other things to worry about I am sure. And try again in a few months?