Looking for advice—we seem to be stuck with potty training.

We started potty training about 1½ months ago when my son was 2 years and 4 months old.

At first, it was all accidents, but after a while he started getting the hang of it. He could hold his pee, and if we asked him to use the potty, he would. Eventually, he got to the point where he could feel that he needed to go and would ask for the potty—but usually after he had already started peeing a little in his pants. I still considered that progress because at least he recognized the feeling.

Then I had to put him back in pull-ups for a couple of weeks. I'm pregnant, and honestly I got exhausted with potty training and needed a break. During that time I still took him to the potty whenever I could, so we didn't stop completely.

Now we've been back to training for a little over a month. If I take him to the potty every 2 hours and after meals, he stays dry for most of the day.

The problem is that if I don't remind him, he almost never asks on his own. Instead, he has an accident. I can tell he knows what's happening because he'll often go to a corner or move away from everyone right before he pees or poops. And at that moment if asked if he wants to potty he always says NO

I've also noticed that whenever he has loose stools or diarrhea, he seems to lose control completely and can't hold either his urine or stool.

My questions are:

Could going back to pull-ups for those two weeks have confused him or caused this setback?

We've been at this stage for about 3 weeks without any real improvement. Is this normal, or should I be doing something differently?

How can I encourage him to tell me he needs the potty instead of waiting for me to remind him?

One thing that may be relevant is that he had a speech delay. He was mostly nonverbal until recently and has only started using words over the last few months, so while we're working on encouraging him to communicate, he isn't as verbal as many children his age.

Has anyone been through something similar? Did your child eventually start asking on their own, and what helped?