I want to write this down because when I searched for advice at the start I mostly found either "just pick them up" or nothing useful at all.

Week one: nothing. I did not touch him. I sat next to the cage at the same time every evening, talked in a low voice, and put a treat in the bowl when he was awake. That is the whole week. The point is only that your presence stops meaning danger.

Week two: my hand in the cage, empty, resting flat on the bedding, for five minutes. Not chasing him, not following him. Most nights he ignored it. Twice he sniffed it. I did not move. If he took a treat from my palm, that was a good day.

Week three: treat in the palm, hand flat, waiting for him to climb on. This is the step where people ruin it by closing their hand. Do not close your hand. Let him walk on and walk off. He needs to learn that getting on the hand is always reversible.

The photo is him being stroked along the back, which only became possible after about a month. Stroking the back is much less threatening than coming from above or reaching for the belly.

Things I got wrong at the start:

- Waking him up to handle him. A hamster woken from sleep is a scared hamster, and it teaches him that your hand is the thing that ruins his day.
- Picking him up by the scruff because someone online said it was fine. It worked, and he avoided my hand for a week afterwards.
- Handling him over a table or standing up. If they jump, a fall from height is the real risk. I do it sitting on the floor now, or over the bed. Their eyesight is poor, they cannot judge a drop.
- Introducing a second hamster because it "seemed lonely". Hamsters are solitary. That was the worst mistake I have made, and it happened before I read anything about it.

The thing nobody says: the goal is not a hamster that tolerates being held. It is one that comes to you because that is where the good food is. That took three weeks of doing very little, and it has held up for a year.