It's not working

[inna88]

My DS who is 3y5m is still not potty trained.

We have read all of the books all of the methods and end up giving up after a few days of trying.

He won't sit on the toilet or potty not even with bribery..
If he's without a nappy we watch him all day and when he starts having a wee we would put the potty in front of him and he'll scream and run away and push the potty away.

It's sooooo stressful. We have been trying for a year and it's just not happening. He shows none of the signs that he's ready and he'll happily have a nappy on. But shouldn't he show some sort of signs by now? All of my friends who have younger DC have managed to potty train them. I feel like such a failure

I had trouble with ds.
try different sorts of potty and even a plastic jug or similar to wee in. Protect floors with a kylie.
I set a timer for 45 mins and when the timer sounded he had to sit on his potty. The first few goes were difficult but by the end of the day he sat and weed when the timer sounded.
I was starting to panic because it was only few months before he started school

Mine was a similar age when nursery declared all the ones in his group should be in pants with no nappies.
After a couple of weeks they gave up and let him go back into pull-ups.
Can't remember what age he did potty train, but think it was before he was 4.
Just needed to do it in his own time.

Has he got any other developmental problems?

Bribes come before a behaviour, rewards come after. If the reward isn't working, maybe it is not motivating enough - he has to really really want it.

Make sure him going to the loo or potty is much much much more rewarding and exciting than having an accident. This means excessive praise every time he manages it or even tries, and no reaction AT ALL when he has an accident other than "oops you had an accident" and clean up quickly. Negative attention can reinforce him not using the loo/potty.

Is he afraid of it for some reason? A bad experience? You want him to experience succeeding even a tiny bit and make that feeling irresistible to him.