Puppy pooping in crate. Help!!

[Cornishgirl18]

So, our 8 week old cocker has been with us 6 days and I am absolutely exhausted, emotional and thinking what the hell have we done. From past threads I know this is normal!!! I honestly wish though we'd opted for a fourth child instead of the puppy right now. Hoping you guys can help with a few issues...
Toileting in the day not going too bad. I'd say 90% of wee's are outside (I literally take him into the garden every 45 minutes which is exhausting in itself)... Poo's however.... Arghh. He has a crate but keeps soiling it. He seems happy enough to go in there in the day and also at night .... But just poo's. I'm wondering if its anxiety. His poo's are very soft so we have been using Pro kolin. I have made the crate as small as possible, just enough to lie down and turn around. Should I be setting my alarm in the night to take him out. The first few nights he whimpered so took him out to the garden (crate door closed) . Night 3 he soiled his crate 3 times (door was closed), so since day 4 we have left his crate door open with a puppy pad outside. We actually had a full night's sleep last night but found 2 poo's in his pen (crate is in pen in the kitchen). Not sure what is the right thing to do?

He is fed at 7am, 12 noon and 4...should I change this to help with the night pooing issue? He is on eukanuba puppy food which is what the breeder had him on.
On a positive he has already learnt to sit and come on command. He is very bitey during his hyper periods, which usually coincides with kids coming home from school.

I've been leaving him in his pen with crate door open for short periods in day e.g school run (he doesn't seem to like his car crate and poo'd in it on school run on Monday hence why I have left him at home. ). Any advice re pooing in crate much appreciated.

[Jouska]

I would push his teatime meal later. It is a long time to go from 4.00pm to 7am without food. If he is hungry he will wake up and then poo.

It may also push that night time poo to early morning hopefully 6.00 when you get up.

May not work but worth a try.

Also check how much food he is having too much food will give loose poo.

Also agree there is a degree of anxiety involved and this will pass if you do not react to the poos and as he settles in.

This too will pass (honest!)

[Egg]

Forgot to comment on food. Ours has four meals a day as recommended by the vet and also on the feeding guide on the packet (complete dry food). Generally 6:30 / 11ish / 3:30 / 7ish. I think he goes onto three meals a day at around 16 weeks.

[raspberryk]

Yes you need to take them out in the night we have the pup in our bedroom and if she wakes up she gets taken outside. That was a short phase but it does roughly work out to be number of months plus 1 but she sleeps through now and easily goes 10 or 11 til 6 or 7.
We got a pee post and I think that helped too for getting her to go outside.
You need to spend time actually crate training though, even 20 mins for an 8 week pup who hasn't been crate trained is a long time.
When we need ours to go in the crate we play for a while, take outside for toileting and then pop in the crate. You have to look at the patterns of awake, nap, food, poop etc so you can roughly predict what is going to happen when.