Potty Training Blues

So I guess it’s pretty well understood that boys are much more difficult to potty train than girls are, at least from what other moms are telling me.  According to a popular parenting magazine, boys generally start to potty train at around 2 1/2 to 3 years old.  Considering that Chase is 4 now, I guess you can say we’ve been trying to potty train him for at least a year.  He has periods where he does great and keep his pull up dry all day, and then other times he regresses and goes in the pull up without saying a word to anyone.  If I put him on the toilet, he will go on demand, and on most days, he poops on the potty, but only if we put him on the toilet.  He won’t go on his own, not unless we tell him.  There have been a few different times when we’ve been out that he’ll tell me he has to go, but he won’t do that at home.  I don’t know if he’s being lazy or just too preoccupied playing to bother going to the bathroom.  I can always tell he’s gone in his pull up without checking because when I tell him to go to the bathroom, he tries to avoid it.  Then he tells me, “Don’t say anything to me,” meaning “Don’t yell at me for going in the pull up.”  We tried the whole “big boy’s underwear” thing and went through 6 pairs in one day.  We ran out of clean underwear in a day and a half.  The worst part is that he wouldn’t even tell us he had gone.  We would only find out when we put him on the toilet.

He started to do better after I made him a potty chart, but is still far from being fully trained.  We put a happy face sticker on the chart for each success, and I draw a sad face on it for each time he goes in the pull up.

For all you moms who have successfully potty trained your boys, what do you suggest?  Should I just go cold turkey and stop the pull ups?  I sometimes wonder if he knows it won’t make a mess if he goes in the pull up, so he doesn’t care.  He doesn’t feel the wetness, so it’s not that uncomfortable for him.  I feel bad because I don’t have 45 minutes at a time to sit with him in the bathroom like I did when I potty trained Felicity. 

My mother-in-law tells me that Chase is just like his Daddy in regards to potty training.  (I guess I know who I can thank, huh?).  At this rate, I’m just scared he won’t be potty trained before he goes to kindergarten.

Do any of you moms have any advice that might help?