Independence & crate training progression

We picked up an 8 week old Dachshund last week and have had him now for 5 days (including pickup).

I’d say things are progressing well, he’s becoming more comfortable with us and his routine. In most ways crate training is a massive success – he hasn’t had a single accident and he only sleeps in there.

Our setup is that his crate is in the living room of our apartment (so, 10 feet from our bedroom door) inside a playpen.

He struggles with being independent in two ways: 1. he cries when we’re separated by a barrier. he won’t be alone in the playpen unless actively distracted by food 2. he can’t fall asleep without us sitting in the playpen outside his crate. once he falls asleep we can leave him there til his next wakeup about 3 hours later

In either case if we leave him he cries endlessly.

The latter issue is the bigger one as it makes night time wake ups tough. We take him to potty and it sometimes takes 30 minutes of us sitting on the floor in front of his crate for him to settle.

I realize he’s very new to us and our home and it takes time for him to settle in, but I’m also aware of dachshunds’ tendency to develop separation anxiety, and I’m concerned that our comforting is reinforcing that.

Is the state we’re at typical for his age, or are we doing something wrong?