We started potty training in January, and I think really it's gone quite well. He generally knows when he needs to go and then tells us. If he hasn't been for 2 or 3 hours, we take him to the bathroom and generally he'll have a wee-wee. We get accidents each week, almost always in "batches" - so he'll have a day or two where almost every wee-wee is an accident. No idea what that's about, but most of the books say to expect accidents for at least 6 months so I'm not too worried about it.

Our problem, however, is that he doesn't WANT to go for a wee-wee. So he'll be playing and he'll say "Mummy, wee-wee". Great! So I take his hand ready to lead him upstairs to the bathroom but he'll shout "No wee-wee! No wee-wee!" I then try to make him stand up, but he'll fling himself to the floor and do the full-on tantrum thing - you know how they go really rigid and it's almost impossible to pick them up! Eventually I'll manage to pick him up, pop him on the toilet and he'll do a brilliant wee-wee for him. He then gets a star for his star chart (when he has ten stars, he gets a very small piece of chocolate). I'll then make a massive deal of what a good wee-wee it was and what a good boy he was for telling me he needed to go.

But these trantrums ... why?! I don't want peeing to become "an issue", and I'm concerned this is going to become a bit of a vicious circle, where he'll associate the bathroom with feeling upset, and then not want to go even more, and then have even worse tantrums, etc.

My other prob is that I'm almost 10 weeks preg and our toddler is quite a big boy, so I'm a bit cautious about carrying him up the stairs. But seriously, that is the only way to get him up there - otherwise he'd just have a complete melt-down and then probably go on the carpet.

Anybody else been there, done that? Any tips?

I don't have any advice - we actually stopped for a bit as Earl was getting upset about us pestering him to go, but we'd only been going for 2 days.

Could you get a potty for downstairs so you don't have to carry Monty up the stairs? Could you ask him what he would like to do as a reward too...if he's working towards something like a toy, or a trip to the park for example, then maybe he would be more inclined to go without persuasion. Maybe chocolate just isn't cutting it! Not sure really so just putting ideas out there. So glad it's going well on the whole though. We're getting such mixed results, I kind of think it's going to be a sudden thing with Earl, just like bottles and STTN was lol.

I was also wondering whether a potty for downstairs would help, at least you wouldn't have to carry him up the stairs. I don't really know what else to suggest. Thomas did go through a stage of holding his pee for way too long because he would refuse to go to the toilet, he went a whole day without peeing once when he was with the childminder, which I found quite worrying. I got a large packet of jellybeans and he got a jellybean but only if he went for a pee without any fuss, if he was protesting or tantruming then he didn't get one. So basically rewarding going to the toilet properly rather than rewarding the pee itself, if you see what I mean. It really motivated him because he loved the jellybeans and doesn't ever get sweets normally. We didn't have to use the whole packet of jellybeans because he started going without any difficulties again.