When I got my beagle he was 3 months old. We initially were not going to do crate training. I put his bed next to our bed, and he was like a little kid, we had to get him still to get him to go to sleep. So I would coax him into the bedroom and onto his bed, and then lay down myself, and reach down and pet him until he fell asleep. Then he started getting up in the middle of the night and leaving us surprises. And there were nights that he would refuse to stay on his bed and go to sleep and I would have to keep getting him up and putting him back on it.
So after about a week we decided to get a crate. He was OK with it from day 1. I just gave him treats and got him to go into the crate with the door open several times... then would get him in there and close the door for a minute or two, gradually working towards longer stays in the crate with the door closed. This was over a Saturday afternoon... that night when we went to bed, I moved it over next to our bed where his bed used to be, and he slept through the night. No problems since then. I can tell him any time of the night or day to go to bed and he runs and jumps in his crate.
After we got the DDB, we started off with her crate in the bedroom, but she snores SOOOOO loud that we couldn't sleep. So we moved her out into the hallway for a couple of nights and slept with the door open, then a couple of nights with the door closed, then moved them both into the kitchen and they've been fine ever since.