Crating at Night

Question
We recently got a Dachshund puppy who was about 11 weeks old. He was used to being crated according to the breeder.  The first night home, he barked when I tried to leave him (in his crate) in the living room, so we put him in my 19 yr old daughter's room (as there isn't enough room in my room for the crate) where he quickly settled down and slept pretty much all night. That was about 2 weeks ago, and he's been doing super until the past 3 nights. He began barking the first night, and Lindsey took him out to make sure he wasn't indicating that he needed to use the bathroom.  He didn't.  When returned to his crate, he barked for 2 or 3 minutes, then settled down.  The next night the same thing happened, but this time he didn't settle down after he began barking, and my daughter, out of lack of sleep and frustration, finally took him out and let him sleep with her after about 30 minutes of barking.  Tonight, it started again, so we put his crate in the den and let him bark his head off - and he has done just that.  He barked for 1 1/2 hours straight to start, calmed for about 30, started up again for a long while, etc.  I'm not sure what to do, whether we are doing the right thing, etc. I'm not sure why it started out of the blue like that when he had been doing so well at night for almost 2 weeks. I know when my children were babies, we would check on them when they cried, make sure they were dry, and then close the door and let them cry themselves to sleep.  So I thought doing the same for the puppy would be a good idea. My husband on the other hand, from lack of sleep, is not in complete agreement with me.  :)  Any advice would be wonderful!

Answer
At bed time, with a new puppy, I have found lying down in front of the crate like you were going to sleep and speaking softly to it, or singing, until it settles down and goes to sleep works very well. Follow the pattern, a period of active play, outside to eliminate, and then into the crate.

I am a little surprised that after a good start you are having trouble.  If laying down next to  the crate doesn't work, you must endure the barking for a while.  He should give up before too long.