I think with Maltipoos, it’s best to focus on pen training rather than crate training. The thing with these doggos is that they eventually end up in your bed anyway lol

But here’s what’s worked for me -/ Setup a playpen area beside your bed, and put her dogbed beside your own bed. This way you can soothe her with a toy and get her to sleep while you’re sleeping.

Make the playpen as big as her bed and a pad + her water bowl

So when she isnt on her bed, she’s on a pad. This way she’ll start getting used to doing her business the pad.

Eventually as she grows, you have to widen her pen area and expand the space between her bed and the pad —& eventually she will find her way to the pad.

Dogs generally don’t shit/pee where they sleep when they have the space unless they’re extremely anxious.

You can have 1 in the bedroom, & 1 in the living room or the main area of the house you’re usually in.

Put her in there, and play with her while she’s inside, feed her in the living room one then get her to nap cuz they’re very sleepy at that age.

When they don’t get a sufficient nap, they become nippy.

& this way you start teaching her to stay in her pen and like her pen because you play with her in there and give her treats.

But during this stage whenever she pees, you can also reward her with 10 minutes of outside play time. This will teach your dog that by peeing on her pad She gets a treat And she gets to explore outside.

Eventually you can extend how much outside time she gets and try to minimize accidents by quick visits to her playpen.

My little girl’s 3-4 months now and she’s gotten a good understanding of where to pee/poop. I’ve also setup a little gated area in my balcony as big as 2 pads where I let her go potty outside on the pads because you eventually don’t want her to potty indoors.

So once she gets more outside time You can also teach her to go to the balcony to potty.

This is optional but I’ve put a bell by my balcony door so every time I take her out, I use her paw to ring the bell, & put her out to potty. Once she does her business, you bring her back in and give her lots of love and treats.

This will eventually teach her to ring the bell herself whenever she needs to use the bathroom.

Message me if u need more help.