Advice On Relationship Pace

I’m 23 and dating someone who I was best friends with in high school (same age). He liked me, but it was unrequited. He has never been in an in person relationship before and because of his inexperience, he doesn’t yet know how to pace himself. We’ve only been dating for two weeks and our first and only date this far was 6 days ago. Before our date, he admitted that he was falling for me, to which I told him that I’d like to take things slow and enjoy each other before rushing things, ensuring that we have all the time in the world. But after the date, he’s saying he struggles with not saying he loves me nearly every day. We’ve had extensive conversations about pacing, to which we both agree, but he just ends up saying he loves me without saying the words. I understand his feelings are intense, and he may genuinely think he loves me, but this constant back and forth is getting to me. What should I do? I care for him and genuinely want to build a relationship, but I’m getting overwhelmed.

We’ve been talking a lot and we’re both pretty close now. We both have feelings for each other and I’ve made it abundantly clear that we’re dating and need to pace ourselves. He’s not independent and has invited his parents into our relationship now too to the point where they have a say in how long he goes out with me and whether or not he can stay the night. They know more about me than I do about them. I’ve been on my own since 19 and I have my own place and everything so this is all new to me.
We give each other pet names, like I’ll call him my handsome, love, (I call all my friends that), or his name with a heart. He’ll call me baby (which I ignore even though it irks me slightly because we’re not official yet), darling, my darling, and today he just called me my love. Every day he still says at least 4 times that he just wants to say the L word. I usually just change the subject after reminding him it’s too soon. He’s even brought up me meeting his family and I told him that we should wait and enjoy dating first and actually become official and serious before introducing each other to the family, although I’d love to at some point.