baby hamsters & mom

Question
I have two Syrian hamsters.  My mom got pregnant and we have 7 babies.  Dad is in his own cage and mom with the babies.  She (unfortunately) made her nest in the "sky wheel" and has the babies up there with her.  I cleaned the cage today (day 8) and put the babies in the bottom of the cage in an "igloo" but mom freaked out and took them all back up to the top wheel nest.  I am worried about the babies starting to want to get out of the nest and hurting themselves.  Shouldn't they be getting out of there by now and learning to walk or something?  Help!  I don't know what to do.

Answer
Hi Kelly.

If you really feel the babies are in danger, then I would suggest removing them to the cage and removing the sky wheel and any other attatchments that mom may utilize to make a nest until the babies are weaned.

Since you handled the babies today (it is not recommended to handle them until at least fourteen days old) then I wouldn't say do it for a few days at least, female hamsters get severely stressed by disturbances in their nests when they are nursing, and when stressed Syrians in particular tend to commit infanticide and kill their babies.

They'll be starting to move around more and more as they approach fourteen days old.

Thanks for the question, and feel free to ask me any others you may have!