New Hamster Is Scared of Me Again

[yogurt]

Hi, I’m a new hamster owner. Previously owned rats.

I got my hamster roughly two weeks ago and I understand the taming process will take a while. My main concern is that I seemed to be making good progress with my hamster. He’d come out whenever called and eat treats from my hand. I give him strawberry soy milk as treat every once in a while and he allows me to pet him while he drinks.
I keep him in a 58l bin in my room and I’m planning to add a second floor but I decided to wait until he got a bit bigger.
Starting Thursday he started to get more skittish.

He freezes up when approached and runs away as soon as he hears my voice. He no longer approaches me for treats and doesn’t trail after them like he used to.

I can think of a couple of reasons why he’s stressed.

I tried the approach of luring him to sit on my hand while giving him the option to jump if he wanted to. No problem there. But I think I scared him badly when I tried to lift my hand. That’s when he started to get skittish.

I keep him in my room where my computer is because there’s construction going on next door. Have had an accident with my volume being louder than I thought but I always keep the speakers at a consistently low volume. (Can’t wear headphones thanks to tinnitus)

I may have overdone the cleaning. I did it twice this week. Mostly I pick up his droppings and clean out his ceramic hide.
I’m also concerned that he’s going to get freaked out when I have to clean his cage at the end of this week.

Now that the context is out of the way my main question is how do I regain his trust? I’m planning to leave him alone for two-three days, although I’ll continue to speak to him. I won’t interact much aside from replacing his food and water. I’m also planning to add tissues with my scent but that’s about it. Is there anything else I can do to help my hamster trust me again?

[Amethyst_ice]

Hello

The taming process can be exciting but also stressful and upsetting at times but try to not be disheartened.

yes, cleaning that much wil have disrupted things. He needs to feel safe and settled in his home so try not to clean out too much

Have you got a bath tub? Scooping him up into a mug/box and then sitting in the bath with a towel is good. Letting him run over you and keep up the little treats!

There are many threads on taming ideas, it is often easier to tame them outside of the cage

Good luck and keep us updated