Falling off the Wagon

What happened?!

So, the last two days Jax has been inexplicably (for me anyway) neurotic about his crate. Again, he's fine sleeping in his crate if the door is open, and especially if we are in the room. However, for the last two nights he has positively refused to be left alone in the close crate. By "positively refused" I mean his stubbornness has even exceeded mine. After making sure he had emptied all the requisite parts before bed, I put him in the crate with no excuse to whine. Then I listened to him go through cycles of whining, barking, moaning, etc. completely determined that he would just have to quiet down and go to sleep - that I wasn't going to let him out on his terms. Ugh. Two hours later (this is 2am), I relent. I waited for a brief quiet spell and interjected a "Good boy, Jax" for the quietness, which usually provides a brief hiatus from the cacophony, and then went to sleep on the couch. In less than a minute he was asleep in the back of his crate.

What now? We've had him for 3 weeks now with no noticeable improvement in crate behavior. I'm failing. And Jax is getting fat on treats.