I think he has control, firstly because we tried training for a few days at 3.1 and he held in the poo for 3 days and kept himself almost completely dry at nursery to avoid the toilet. So he was obviously very anxious.
He is fascinated but sometimes scared of toilets. He'll do a 5-minute tour of all the toilets in a new house, for instance, before settling down to play. He'll sit on them and say "put the poo in the toilet" but nothing happens.
He's been sat on the toilet with toys for several months now after doing a poo. But he's only wee'd in the loo once and only poo'd once.
I'm thinking of "going for it" at Easter. We last tried in October and frankly we gave up after about 3 hours because we hated the mess and the stress - he kept running off to hide in a corner to wee.
Big question: given his anxieties, would it be a good idea to let him wear pullups outside the house? His language is delayed but I think he would now understand "nappies outside, no nappies at our house". He also responds very well to choices so might go for a choice between potty and toilet.
Bringing on his speech remains priority number one. We've recently learnt that his withdrawn behaviour in nursery was due to difficulty understanding verbal timetables and the addition of pictures has made him much more confident. But it's still fragile there and I don't want to introduce stress again.
He now calls himself a "big boy" and I think I would mean a lot to him if he could use the potty/toilet. His language-related special needs are a challenge but we enjoy life with him - I don't want to jeapardise that. But I do think he should be out of nappies now.
Any advice gratefully received.