Backwards Progress – Help Needed!

Hello all .. in need of some advice regarding our 14 week old Australian Labradoodle puppy.

For context, we got her at 8 weeks old, so she’s been with us for 6 weeks now.

When we initially got her, we began crate training her at night time, she has a correctly sized crate with a bed and blanket inside, along with a heartbeat crate toy. Initially, with a pen around the outside of the crate she would settle and we would lift her in shut the door and off to sleep she went (a few breaks in the night for potty!) one of us would sleep nearby (room next door) but it was a fairly easy routine.

This continued for 2 or 3 weeks and we then moved upstairs leaving pup in her crate downstairs as she would now sleep the night (11-6) without needing a potty – FAB right?

Fast forward to last week, where she now refused to go in her crate, she would need us to settle her in her pen then lift her in and shut the door to which an almighty protest will take place, longest one being nearly 3 hours before she settled.

This went on for a few nights until we gave in and moved the crate up into our bedroom next to our bed. The issue now is we cannot get her to go in there without a fuss. So we have some calm time before, pop her in and shut the door. Again, protest breaks loose – even though we are less then 2 feet away and visible to her, she will still paw at the crate and bark the walls down.

Eventually she will settle, (we shut her in, sit beside her and soothe through the crate door) and sleep the whole night through but getting to that point feels like a constant up hill battle and massive backward step from where she was last week.

This obviously isn’t the behaviour or association we want to create with the crate. The crate itself I don’t believe is the issue, she goes in there during the day willingly for random naps, eats in there, takes toys in there for a chew and chill.. it’s simply when needing to go to bed at night it becomes problematic. It’s driving me nuts as I dont knows suddenly stopped in order for the previous routine to have gone out the window.

Long term we dont intend to force the crate, we’d be happy for her to sleep in a bed on the landing or hall way, but whilst she’s a pup we’d like her contained at night for her safety and our peace of mind.

Can someone offer advice, is this regressing type behaviour normal? Are we going wrong somewhere? We want nothing but the best for our pup and up until now she was absolutely fantastic, but this night time problem is starting to wear thin. My better half is a frontline medical worker and has to be up at early hours each morning, so we need to get a consistent and timely routine in place for both her and the pup.

Any advice and input is greatly appreciated.

Cheers and Happy New Year to all.