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Fighting Mother Nature & The Night-Time Zoomies!

My Sugar Glider comes ALIVE at night...
Why can't I hold onto him/her?

Once your sugar bear is bonded to you enough that you can generally hold it in your hands – and it can ride around on your shoulder without jumping off – you will likely notice that all the “rules” suddenly go out-the-window shortly after the sun goes down…

If your baby(ies) are normally fairly docile and calm all day – and then all of a sudden get SO lively around 9-10pm that you can hardly hold them (without them constantly squirming and even gently nipping at you to try and “escape” your hands) – that’s perfectly NORMAL…

Especially when they are LITTLE babies that haven’t fully bonded yet, it can be pretty challenging to hold them in one place or restrict their movements after 9-10pm – because what you are essentially doing is fighting “Mother Nature”. Now, it WILL get easier as they get more bonded and mature, but even then every chromosome in their little bodies will always be telling them it’s time to stretch their “wings” shortly after the sun goes down. Because of this fact, rather than fight an uphill battle, people usually handle this one of two ways…

The first option is to just put them back in their cage – and let them play and bounce around to their little heart’s content. This is perfectly FINE, especially if you are busy and have a lot of things to do later in the evening; and if you put some toys in the cage with them, they will have a ball! Also, don’t forget, for some unknown reason they instinctual LOVE to untie knots – so if you put a piece of 1/2 inch nylon rope in their cage and tie a bunch of knots in it – you will be surprised at just how ingenious these little guys can be :-)

The second option is even MORE fun!… If you have a room in your home where your baby(ies) can’t get permanently lost (ie duct work, etc..), or into any serious trouble, you can let just them run free and go nuts in that ONE room! It’s even BETTER if you are in the room with them watching TV or something, because every couple minutes they’ll usually jump back to YOU just to make sure their “security blanket” is still there :-)

Its really VERY entertaining to watch, and if possible you should try to do this activity with your baby(ies) at least once every couple weeks. Just make sure to always take a quick walk through the room FIRST and sugar glider “proof” it using the all the tips from our previous “sugar glider proofing” email…

The general idea here is just to GRADUALLY increase their “safety zone” from:

  1. their pouch… to
  2. your shirt… to
  3. your hands…to
  4. your shoulder… to
  5. a tent or one room of the house… to
  6. eventually pretty much any room in your house (except the bathroom).

Remember, the two biggest natural hazards to sugar gliders in any typical home are “chocolate” – and an open toilet lid – so always check things out for a minute before “PLAYTIME” begins :-)

Just start slow…follow the above “6 Stages of Freedom”… and ENJOY!